It's fitting that a man who looks so like a teacher seems to view cinema-goers as impressionable kids. After all those Shakespeare adaptations, Kenneth Branagh now presents us with a Mozart opera. He's determined to improve us, even if it causes more than a few cheeky monkeys to bunk off.

Actually, during the whole 133 minutes, I only felt like flicking pellets once.

Branagh and his librettist Stephen Fry have set the weird story - involving a boy, a girl, her mad mum and much-maligned dad - against the backdrop of the First World War. The horrors of Flanders provide a strange but satisfying glue. For the first time ever, the plot made sense to me.

The numerous CGI effects, meanwhile, create a suitably trippy, hyper-surreal aesthetic. The world inhabited by lovers Pamina (Amy Carson) and Tamino (Joseph Kaiser) doesn't look real - it's not meant to - yet it's far from one-dimensional.

Occasionally, things get too busy. The Queen of the Night's Vengeance Aria, performed on top of a castle, is so like an Eighties pop video, I kept wondering if Bonnie Tyler was going to show up. The supermodel-pretty Carson displays an opera diva's acting skills but still, like the rest of her colleagues, she's a wondrous singer.

A week is a long time in cinema. Last Friday saw Branagh being all but written off thanks to the ludicrous Sleuth. This week, he's hitting the high notes.