The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
Ten Second Review: A myriad of missteps in film making and storytelling. The Nutcracker is an uphill battle to keep from belly laughing at its expositional dialogue and call and response storytelling.
I made the mistake of seeing a Christmas film too early and in return I received a gift of coal. I say that because while resoundingly negative criticism can be truly fun to write, and as such I must concede seeing this was a gift of sorts, it was so awful that I rather wish there had been no gift at all.
The original nutcracker story goes something like this:
On Christmas eve, a family gather round near their tree and the children are given presents by a toymaker. One of the children, Clara, takes a liking to a wooden nutcracker in the shape of a soldier. Her brother breaks it but in the night she goes to check on it. As midnight strikes the nutcracker comes to life and grows to a full size man. Mice pour into the room and the nutcracker and other soldiers fight off the mice and the rat king. They win and are treated to a phenomenal celebration featuring luxuries from around the world like sweets and coffee. The little girl bids goodbye and returns to her world.
I only go to the trouble of stating all of that as almost none of it ends up in the film. It stops after the the children are given presents by a toymaker. Clara (Mackenzie Foy) is then thrust into a magical world were she immediately encounters a nutcracker (Jayden Fowora-Knight) guarding a bridge. His name is Phillip by the way, in case you were wondering, which nobody was. Across from the bridge the lands cease to be luscious and beautiful and instead are withered and nasty. Unsurprisingly, that’s where the evil Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) lives and she has the MacGuffin the film revolves around. After meeting the citizens of this magical world, Clara takes it upon herself to save them all by going to do battle with Mother Ginger but all may not be as it seems…
My lasting feeling after watching this film is that it all felt very flat and weightless. The reliance on CGI environments made all the scenes feel very disconnected. You couldn’t really tell if the realms were immense or barely the size of a small town when combined. There was no sense of scale and any moment of confrontation between the real actors and the CGI characters felt stunted and mismatched. This flatness also leaked into the music. It seems bizarre that the talents of Gustavo Dudamel have somehow been wasted and turned into this rather soulless rendition of one of the most exciting suites in the history of classical music. It was as if, like with much of the rest of the film, they had actively sought to remove any of the character that it already has and replace it with a hollowness that even a tin soldier would gawk at. I feel sorry for Tchaikovsky, that was an awful representation of his music for the inevitably young audience of this film.
While I’m on the subject of the audience, I feel they should be addressed. The easy cop out with a film like this is to suggest that it is aimed at a younger audience. While the notion that a film for kids can’t also appeal to adults would have Pixar directors and Studio Ghibli writers rolling in the aisles, the problem is that this didn’t even appeal to children. There were several families sitting within earshot and young children (no older that 7 or 8) were guessing the plot twists as they were set up. Usually kids talking through a film is extremely annoying but in this case it was welcome relief to know that even children could see how bland and obvious this film was. One kid even pointed out a plot hole, that I didn’t see at all, only to rightly huff when the hole gaped even further later in the film.
So if it’s not for people who like the ballet, it’s not for people who like the music, it’s not for adults and it’s not for kids, who is it for? The closest I have to an answer is maybe Kiera Knightley fans. In a film that has Richard E Grant, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and even Omid Djalili somehow Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy is the most watchable thing about it. Or so I thought until the credits began to role. I’m not being shady, the credits play over Misty Copeland and her partner doing some actual ballet cut together with some contemporary and street dance from Lil Buck. It was almost as if the person who did the credits received an entirely different tonal brief and in turn made exactly the film that would have highlighted the beauty of the music to a younger audience. To think they could have made a stunning dance focused film that blended classic and modern styles and instead chose to make this CGI monstrosity is actually a little absurd.
If it weren’t for the fact that you have to pay a fair a mount to go to the cinema these days I would honestly recommend seeing this car crash of a film. The disjointed dialogue, the boring plot, the mind numbing visuals and lifeless score are somewhat shocking and almost worth attention. It shines as proof that money alone can't make a film good and even a timeless story and score can be made to feel dull, archaic and flat. There is a right way to make a nutcracker film and it’s certainly not this.
There are a couple of weird matryoshka doll clowns which were cool character design though and that gets it a second star.
