Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

If I said; The Nutcracker, then unless you’re a nut enthusiast, then those words would bring to the surface a very familiar tune. Those melodic sounds will make you think of Christmas, adventure and awaken that childhood curiosity that lives deep down.

During a time of warmth and togetherness, the Stahlbaum’s aren’t quite in the holiday spirit, it being the first they’re spending without recently deceased wife and mother – Marie.

Clara (Mackenzie Foy), similar to her mother in their shared affinity for mechanic’s, is hoping Marie’s last Christmas gift to her will help her to feel a little less lost. Unfortunately the gift is missing its key, and Clara is desperate to locate it, thinking that all the answers she’s looking for will lie within.

With the help of her godfather (Morgan Freeman), Clara embarks on a quest to find the key, which unknowingly leads her to follow in her mothers footsteps into a magical world

There are pretty much only three things I really liked about this movie.

The Costumes: They were fun and very fitting to the theme of the characters wearing them. Clara also had a number of stately dresses that had me feeling incredibly plain and painfully envious…. not that I have any reason to dress like a princess or a toy solider.

Ballet: They incorporated a Ballet piece into the movie which I thought was really nice. It was an inventive way to tell part of the story, broke up the normative structure and added a cultured aspect to the movie that I don’t think anyone was expecting.

Knightley & Macfadyen: This has nothing to do with the story, but I like that Matthew Macfadyen and Keira Knightley were in the same movie together. For those who don’t know, they played Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet respectively, in the 2005 Pride & Prejudice movie – which happens to be one of my favourite films.

Considering I was one of the rare few who was looking forward to the release of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, I’m pretty disappointed.

Despite it being set in this magical realm I didn’t get a sense of the wonder behind it – whereas I would still to this day want to bop Narnia, I wouldn’t stop off at… this place that was never (that I can remember) actually named.

This is a little random, but I found it really strange that there were a lot of well-known names acting in this movie; Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Keira Knightley even having Jack Whitehall felt strange.

I mean there’s nothing really bad to say about this movie given the audience it’s aimed towards. Did it have an appropriately adorable lead? – Yes. Was there a randomly contrived adventure to help the main character come to terms with personal issues? – Yes. Were the visuals unnaturally saturated to give an almost hallucinogenic feel? – Hell yes.

It was sweet, it was predictable, it was incredibly vanilla – but aside from one amazing ballet piece, a handful of pretty costumes and that creepy as heck Mouse King – there’s nothing substantial in this movie to write home about.

I do think kids will enjoy this movie – if you’re into dragging your hyperactive short attention spanned kid to the cinema like that – and it’s not the worst thing in the world for a less than enthusiastic parent to sit through.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a forgettable, slightly less than okay movie that was released at precisely the right moment to get families ready for the Christmas buzz.