The funniest moment in “The Inventor” comes late in the movie, when King Charles of Spain and Henry VIII start tussling on the veranda of the French royal palace. What begins as a battle of egos ends in a dust-up — or, rather, a blur of cotton balls. The film, you see, is rendered in stop-motion animation. The flurry resulting from the kingly fracas serves as a lovely pun on the medium. So many fisticuffs; so much softness.

“The Inventor” is an odd entertainment, a movie seemingly imagined by adults who remember the hallmarks of childhood but not its spirit. It is, in significant part, a valentine to a production company, Rankin-Bass, that was responsible for such holiday television staples as “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer,” “The Little Drummer Boy,” and “Frosty the Snowman.” The level of stylization inherent to the character design, as well as the tempered color palette, are lifted entirely from the mid-1960s.

The picture comes with an impressive pedigree. The script was written and co-directed by an alumnus of Pixar,  Jim Capobianco, who had a hand in, among much else, “Toy Story 2,” “Finding Nemo,” and “Ratatouille.” Co-director Pierre-Luc Granjon has been involved with various approaches to animation for a good two decades. Composer Alex Mandel wrote “Touch the Sky” — a big hit, I am told — for Disney’s “Brave.” Stephen Fry, Marion Cotillard, and Daisy Ridley provide voices.

“The Inventor” pegged in the title is Leonardo da Vinci. Why that designation was deemed preferable to “The Painter” is a good question. “Mona Lisa” — the picture, not Gioconda herself — rears its enigmatic head several times during the movie, as do “The Last Supper” and, fleetingly, “The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne.” 

Leonardo’s ideas about city planning are a focus of the film, as is his fondness for anatomical research. Alternate titles for the movie could be “The Utopian Architect” or “Grave Robber.” Given the holistic platitudes Mr. Capobianco provides for Leonardo, “New Age Guru” would do just as well.

“The Inventor” follows our erstwhile renaissance man (a restrained Mr. Fry) as he wiggles out from under the narrow-minded patronage of Pope Leo X (Matt Berry). Leonardo travels to France at the behest of King Francis (Gauthier Battoue), who turns out to be just as self-aggrandizing and demanding. The king’s sister, the forward-thinking Princess Marguerite (Ms. Ridley), sides with the perpetually distracted Italian much to the annoyance of mom (Ms. Cotillard). Marguerite is eager to learn the meaning of life. Aren’t we all?

Leonardo scholars will have to decide whether to laud or chide Mr. Capobianco on his historical accuracy. There is much commentary in the film about Leonardo’s inability to finish his projects. Recent conjecture has it that Leonardo suffered from attention deficit disorder. Giorgio Vasari — the artist, historian, and inveterate hype-man for the Renaissance — commented on how da Vinci’s “variable and unstable” temperament prevented his being able to follow through on projects. As seen in “The Inventor,” Leonardo comes off as close kin to the absent-minded professor.

Mr. Capobianco’s film is a labor of love, evinced none more so than when the claymation gives way to traditional animation, the latter of which riffs on Leonardo’s sketchbooks and his drawings of flying machines, armaments, and other elaborate contraptions. Would that the film were less obsequious to the artist’s memory and achievements. As it is, “The Inventor” is definitely preachy and prudish to a fault, a universalist sermon dressed up in 16th-century drag. 

Kids are likely to find it fitfully amusing even as they realize they’re being talked down to. Parents will admire the film’s erudition and craft whilst checking their watches. The rest of us can look forward to finding life’s true meaning by watching out for the new Wallace and Gromit film coming sometime next year.