It’s the third film release in just over two months from Kenneth Branagh in his guise as director. But will his interpretation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute be the one to stem the tide of indifference and, in some reviews, outright derision that greeted the previous two films? Unfortunately, it seems unlikely. Despite the talent involved – Branagh is joined by Stephen Fry, who has written a new libretto – and the ambitious staging, this flute blows all right, but it’s short on the magic.

Branagh opens with a shot that screams for attention like a toddler on a sugar rush. It dashes through the trenches of a military standoff about to spill into all-out battle, then up into the clouds where the camera spars with a squadron of fighter planes. Then we’re back down on earth, following dazed troops. It’s all meant to appear as one continuous shot, and, despite the fact that Branagh relies heavily on CGI to create that appearance, it’s an impressively choreographed sequence. But, in a foretaste of the film, the slick cinematography is also rather soulless.

The central roles of Tamino and Pamina are played by Joseph Kaiser and the fetching British newcomer Amy Carson. Their vocal performances seemed perfectly decent to my inexpert ears, although the stand-out turns came from the more experienced performers Lyubov Petrova and René Pape, whose voice ripples like crushed velvet.

The problem is that, despite the quality of the music and the lavish imaginings, the overall experience is dull, self-satisfied and utterly irrelevant. Branagh has delved into the most kitsch box of computer-generated tricks – think of fairytale castle turrets and a display of lurid chocolate-box flora. But the real let-down is Fry’s contribution: leaden rhyming couplets that frequently struggle to reach the standard of a greeting card message and are certainly not worthy of a famed wit. The aim, presumably, was to bring opera to a new audience. Instead, The Magic Flute seems more likely to disappoint the existing one.

Certificate PG, 130 mins

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