I wish to review this movie with a number of questions. How can you make a movie based on a ballet with barely any dancing? Or music from the ballet? How did the Nutcracker become steampunk? How much glitter is acceptable to wear in a fantasy? Why did you wear more if you knew that answer? How can you hire good actors and then give them absolutely no character to play? Couldn't you have just used the standups in the lobby instead and saved some cash? If you are going to try to make a modern Wizard of Oz, why not have some charm, wit, awe and excitement in the film? How did I actually remain conscious during this movie? For a kids film, were you aiming to add as much nightmare fuel as you could to the film, or was that a happy accident? 3/10
The Nutcracker is fine, but that's it, it's just.... fine.
It feels like the movie doesn't know what it wants to be. It starts in Victorian London, then goes to what is essentially Narnia. It does have a "nutcracker", but he is just like all the other soldiers, except black. There's a ballet montage, a "battle", and family conflict. There's a very intelligent girl, who's the poster child for girls getting into STEM, which was cool.
But, honestly this feels like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe shoehorned into something vaguely resembling The Nutcracker Suite, but not as good.
With all the live-action remakes that Disney is making, I was hoping for something a whole lot closer to its namesake.
Again, it's not terrible for what it is, but even for what it is, it's just not that exciting or compelling.
I kept waiting for the part where the film becomes detestable, but that part never came.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is like a tasty Christmas cookie: it has all the right ingredients, is a little too saccharine and looks incredible.
While the visuals are extremely Baroque in nature, the story, like the original Tchaikovsky ballet, has clear Romantic influences which mean the plot and the music go together like feet and pointe shoes.
MacKenzie Foy was utterly breathtaking in the lead while Jayden Fowora-Knight as the Nutcracker Captain was utterly gorgeous (though the weakest of all performances).
My take is, The Nutcracker... is meant for adults who remember what it means to be a child, and for children who want to know how it feels to be an adult.
I was excepting something different. This movie is very boring. Stunning visuals, awful story. Don't waste your time.
Not quite sure where to place this one. I didn't realise when watching it that it was an adaption from what was originally a ballet, so it felt like it should be a musical and yet nobody sings in it. It did have an influence from "Alice In Wonderland", and that aspect won my approval. It also had at least one or two funny moment so it was rather enjoyable but not something I'd be eager to watch again.
Spoilers with this Review
Non-spoilers it's the Moulin Rouge of Disney movies stunning costumes and set design boring or turgid plot.
The plot while too twee at times was serviceable. I loved set dressing and set design in general, all the fantastic costumes really captured the world perfectly. It was enjoyable and the music was of course amazing. The ensemble Clara wore was friggin' gorgeous and I would love to wear it.
My biggest problem, I saw as soon as I saw how insistent Sugarplum Fairy was on the weapon I knew she was actually the evil one.
Not a bad movie FYI. I'd give it an 8/10 or 7/10 for the set design and costumes alone, but the plot is much to be desired.
If you've seen many versions of the Nutcracker, this one is a delight in the way that very few reimaginings can do. Surprising plot twist on this one (that, if you know and love this story).
This was a pleasant surprise. Instead of only being based on the ballet (which, to me, has beautiful dance but lacks narrative) it is a hybrid of the ballet and the book THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING. This is a beautiful, creative, imaginative, skillfull, and layered production. There is the excellence of Misty Copeland as the Ballerina Princess, the ingenue charm of MacKenzie Foy, the veteran performances of Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and Keira Knightly, the beautiful set pieces that made the realms so real, the comedic and the menacing elements of story, the real loss of our protagonist and the resolving discoveries ("missing is remembering" was a powerful thought), wonderful music, and an abundance of imagination and whimsy. I really liked this film, and give it an 8 (great) out of 10. [Fantastic Adventure]
My favourite thing about this movie was, 100%, the graphics. It was so beautiful to look at. The storyline itself had a very long buildup to the "action" part. Which made the moment of truth a bit snowed under in comparison to the rest (see what I did there). Mackenzie Foy was absolutely brilliant and Keira Knightley confused me a bit, but other than that, The Nutcracker has a great cast! Jayden Fowora-Knight really stood out for me and Jack Whitehall made me laugh quite a bit.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms gave me all the Christmas feels and I can't wait till it's that time of the year again (my favourite time!). This would be great to watch with your family and friends right next to the Christmas tree. Once again, the graphic really did the trick for me but overall it's a fun and enjoyable movie!
Great actors and it was especially a joy to see Mackenzie Foy again.
But the plot was really bland and it isn't a very joyful movie, for kids.
An exciting fantasy adventure, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms re-envisions the classic holiday tale. While at a Christmas party a young girl named Claire accidentally crosses over to a fantasy world where toys have come to life and discovers that her mother was once a queen there, and the regents seek Claire’s help to defeat Mother Ginger, a former regent who has gone rogue and rebelled against the others. Starring Mackenzie Foy, Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, and Morgan Freeman, the film has an impressive cast. And the costumes and set designs are incredibly well-done, creating a wondrous fantasy world. Additionally, the score by James Newton Howard has an enchanting quality that helps to set the right tone. However, the plot is rather thin and fairly predictable. Yet it does find a clever way to include and honor the original Marius Petipa ballet. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms has its problems, but overall it’s a fun family film that celebrates the magic of the season.
This movie is absolute utter shit, I never seen a movie with a ballet that rarely any dance sequences or a villian that is just annoying from ear to ear. There is even one scene that scared me a little and that was Ginger's army of clowns, they are fucking hideous to even look at. This review has a question for Disney: "Why did you spend this much money into making the worst Christmas movie this year? Just why?"
And that is my review for The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
Funny that in a movie called "The Nutcracker and the four Realms", the nutcracker barely has any importance. He could have been left out and it wouldn't have changed the story much. Shame, because the main character Clara is absolutely unbearable. I would ALSO have expected better acting and mic quality from Disney but heyyy
Triumph of form over content? It's neither a family film nor a serious ballet adaptation...
Not necessarily bad, just pretty lame.
'The Nutcracker and the Four Realms' is a harmless and simple film, fine I guess for the festive period. As a whole, though, it isn't good - despite neat effects and a couple of big names.
Keira Knightley (Sugar Plum), Helen Mirren (Mother Ginger) and Morgan Freeman (Drosselmeyer) are familiar faces and are enjoyable on a base level, but their characters are rather forgettable. Mackenzie Foy (Clara) and Jayden Fowora-Knight (Philip) are decent together, while Jack Whitehall (Harlequin) and Omid Djalili (Cavalier) are smart casts - if underused.
It's the plot that lets this down, it just all makes for underwhelming viewing - I, personally, never got into it. The beats of the story are quite predictable, especially the main twist. As noted though, the special effects are pleasant enough - as is the Xmas vibe it sets throughout.
Very meh. You could watch worse, mind.
Honestly, the whole fairytale/fantasy genre is usually a big no for me. So honestly I have no idea what suddenly spurred me on watch this, especially after seeing some of the ratings and reviews.
This movie, however, has proved finally to me that other people's ratings mean nothing. (Just as mine will not to others)
As an aside, just as The Edge of Seventeen introduced me to follow Hailee Steinfeld's movies then the awesome performance of Mackenzie Foy will lead me down the same path with her career.
Ugh. The first movie I come back to discuss on this website, it's this new live-action Disney masterpiece. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a special kind of bad. A Wrinkle In Time from earlier in the year failed spectacularly due to it's haphazard presentation, claustrophobic cinematography, and abysmal acting. I could almost see the script working with some tweaks and a much better director at the helm, because I could see what was attempted with the fantasy sequences. Now this latter film Nutcracker, is the inverse of Wrinkle. One thing I noticed off the bat is the production design and cinematography is beautiful. Victorian London, although has a bad CG introduction, is presented beautifully and even looks better than the real world sets from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. The use of blue and golden color hues and lighting give a fantastical storybook vibe. And once Clara emerges through the other end of the hollow tree log, the white forest illuminated by the sun looks like a painting, just, wonderful imagery that wouldn't be possible in a real location. There's also lots of classical and even Fantasia inspired pieces, when Sugar Plum and the rulers of the Four Realms are showing Clara their kingdoms. Instead of a generic clip/slideshow, it's opted to represent the lands in a stage show ballet, with performers and stage effects. I can't say the same for the make up and costuming though, as it becomes very hard to take the characters seriously who are dressed up like they're at queer parade, with mismatched colors and ridiculous hats and face paint. It's too off the walls for it's own good. But okay, visually, the movie has most everything going for it; a storybook brought to life. Though, I don't know what's with the connection to the Nutcracker story, besides Sugar Plum Fairies playing here and there and there being a "nutcracker" character, this script doesn't seem to be about this world, just this one event happening in the world. And this leads into the disaster that ruined this movie at it's core, and it's the script. I hate to compare, but imagine taking Tim Burton's Alice and strip away all the character development, most of the world building, any sense of scale, pacing, really, any sense of story. There are no pauses, no real chance to breath in this world, no one-on-one conversations about, I don't know, human emotions. Clara just keeps talking about finding the key to her egg her mother gave her, or, we need to go here, I want to go home, etc. She rarely ever talks about what she actually wants, who she wants to be, what she wants to do now knowing this world exists and her mother was a part of it. I would say an overwhelming majority of this movie is action sequences. The script is all in service of the most underwhelming, small scale battles against such dangerous foes like mice, slow tin soldiers, and a high pitched Keira Knightly. Yeah, spoilers, but I don't care. There is no reason to care about anything, and the twists and cliched dialogue can be recited perfectly before they happen. "Oh, open this egg, and everything you need will be inside." Inside the egg, there's only a mirror. Let's have an elongated drawn out sequence where Clara gets upset and storms off about it, then like ten minutes later realizes, "Everything I need is inside... it's me." Like, I laughed hysterically because I read the lines out before she said them, it's so predictable and childish. And the detriment is, you might say, this movie is for children, why are you, a grown man criticizing this. I don't think even kids would want to sit through this, I say that as a sibling. There's nothing that gives you a reason to care about anything, and the exposition is dropped faster than Alice's scroll and so much more lazily through awful mumbling acting. "That is the fourth realm, which is currently at war with the other three realms." Wow, so creative. No images to convey that a war is even happening. Yeah, I know later it's revealed that there isn't even a war going on and everyone was just being tricked by Sugar Plum, but even that doesn't make sense. Why is the forest destroyed? Where are the casualties to prove to the people that a war is actually happening? Sugar Plum isn't mind tricking anyone. There are real people here, and other lands filled with population that can see this. The world has no scale or sense of consequence. Clara could so easily just walk back through the hollow tree and go home. What, so she can get the key for her stupid egg? So what? Why should she or the audience care about anything that happens to this world? It's populated by a bad acted Nutracker, ridiculous looking leaders, obnoxious and unfunny sidekick guards, and ballet dancers. I'm on the edge of my seat, worrying about the future of this stupid world as it gets invaded by slow moving, hollow tin soldiers. This movie is a pathetic, watered down children's fantasy movie, and I think Disney even knows this. You will not seen advertising or promotion for this anywhere at the theme parks or online. It's best we forget this ridiculous, unfortunately beautiful looking 90 minutes of dreck.
The amount of mice scenes and monsters and costumes are going to give me nightmares. Belch!
That was painfully predictable - the Barbie version was so much better, unsurprisingly.
The Nutcracker has never been easy to get right on film, hence all of the failed movie adaptations that came before this one. However, while this film is nowhere near perfect, it is easy on the eye, and at times does cast an enchanting spell. And, of course, there is the music from Tchaicovsky, which in itself is exquisite and tonally perfect. Not a classic then, but it's decent enough and the best adaptation of the ballet yet.
it was very beautiful and the four realms aesthetic was just wow
also, kira knightley as sugar plum fairy? hell yeah
but the plot itself was kinda meh and kinda boring
The film is so cliché to the point we can predict the rest of the story. Good actors are ruined by poor directors
The aesthetics were nice, but this was a pretty bad film. Still, it got a tad more bearable towards the end.
Visually stunning but it would have been better. If it was actually based on the Nutcracker. Just like with A Wrinkle in Time, Disney was more focused on being diverse. Than actually doing the story justice.
Yet they don’t even do anything with the Nutcracker or much with Morgan Freeman. The Nutcracker gets to do very little and the actor doesn’t stand out much.
Hell the Nutcracker starring Elle Fanning that got 0% good reviews. Was more Nutcracker like since the Mouse King was actually the villain.
This movie is well cast and nice to look at but has no reason to exist. Just Disney trying to make another Tim Burton Alice In Wonderland like movie.
While this is an original take on the nutcracker story, it isn't memorable, which is sad. There's si much potential there for a movie that could be watched every Christmas year after year and yet it felt too basic, too predictable, and too underwhelming. There is some ballet thrown in there but we barely get a chance to see this new world except in small tidbits. The villain was predictable, cliche, and easily beaten. It just wasn't satisfying. Now, having said that, my daughter loved it. But usually Disney movies are so well done that the whole family can enjoy them and this just wasnt up to that caliber.
Was it the best movie ever made? Not by a long shot. But I also don't think it deserves the beating it's getting by the critics and the public alike. Clara's story, although a little different than I remember it from the ballet version, is an uplifting and empowering one for young girls, and even I (a 27-year-old woman) found myself quite enchanted by the film's gorgeous scenes and whimsical themes. Does that mean it's a perfect film? Nah. But I wouldn't say it was a complete waste of time either.
ok so as I walked into the theater to see this movie with snacks I wasn't quite sure what to expect but what I got was far from bad really I mean was it perfect no but it had the ability to hold my attention which is more than I can sat for most movies now days I say ignore the bad reviews take the kids and above all else have a good time this also gets you in the mood for Christmas and the holidays in general one if the best Christmas magic movies I've seen in awhile
The Nutcracker is good, but that's it, it's just beautiful effects and regular performances.
Well that was a huge disappointment on multiple levels. First any resemblance to the traditional Nutcracker are tenacious at best. sure some of the music is on the soundtrack, but that's pretty much ll save for a too brief interlude of Misty Copeland. Which is in itself, another gripe as Copeland is used so sparsely that it's absurd. A cameo pretty much.
All of this might've been offset if the liberties taken were in service to the film. They were not. It came off as bland, uninteresting, and ia chore to sit through. It's a sad case of wasted potential.
Shout by Ellie <3BlockedParent2018-11-08T11:05:40Z
I thought this film was breathtakingly beautiful, every frame was decadent. The storyline was vastly different to any other version of the Nutcracker I have seen, but it was a refreshing new take which I enjoyed. Think this may be a new Christmas favourite.