The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

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Imagine you're at a funeral. You see the person in the coffin, all prettied up with makeup, and they look great. But they are also lifeless and dead. And even with all the makeup on them, you still know there is no soul there. Congratulations, you've now seen THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS. But God, I wish this was just a lifeless movie. It's also bland, boring, poorly written, cheesy, predictable as hell, and did I say boring? There are two things that were good in this movie: the music and the production design/the look of the movie. But, they didn't write this music (obviously) and even while the movie looked great, you just could tell almost everything was fake. I had no expectations of this movie being good, but what I wasn't expecting was how apparent it would be that nobody behind this movie had any passion with this idea. You can almost guarantee nobody came to them with a dream idea for a movie, somebody approached someone else and said "Make a Nutcracker movie." Which is fine, but damn put some effort in it. Ugh.

Once upon a time, I had a first date with someone. I took this someone to see The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, hoping it'd be enjoyable and full of laughs for us. What the hell did we watch? The thing that makes it bad is not the story line, which has been overdone to death and was so predictable that me and the date called the ending several minutes before it ended. A typical storyline like this can work well if the actors are into the performance and if it is written well. The problem is...it isn't. We don't get much backstory at all. We just know that the mom has died and now she's left her daughter to go on a quest. The performances are either over the top or not believable at all. I can see a hyperactive kid who likes adventure getting very bored with this movie. I found myself checking my phone. We don't really get much in the way of "action" until around 45 minutes into the film, which for a children's flick that's supposed to be about energy, is probably way too long for them. I'm 20, and it's too long for the child in me as well. The lead actress in this was worse than paint drying. Literally anyone could have acted better. Can the woman just...pretend to care about what she's in? If you're looking for something to shut up your kid for 90 minutes, than this is for you. If you're looking for something good, chose otherwise.

Be warned first of all, this movie is supposed to be about Christmas but does more to represent the Spanish War. Its message is also unclear and actually quite dangerous. Without trying to reveal spoilers, i'll go ahead and basically say that the moral of this movie is that actual family presence means nothing and can be overridden with clever purchases and their uses (aka appealing to the consumerist part of Christmas). The movie shares two tones, one being the exquisite and quite beautifully CGI rendered world of the kingdom, and the other being a Halloween looking tent that Mike Myers might want to hide out in. The part that irks and confuses me, is that there is no clear reason for why these two tonal shifts have to be so conflicting with each other in the film other than to provide an obvious front for conflict. This symbolises to me a lack of care and depth that went into the developing this film's characters or story. It was a complete attempt to appeal to the audience, there was no sacrifice on the writers part to put something original in here. It's everything you've seen and liked in pop culture, fit into the "Christmas" theme of The Nutcracker (this movie isn't really about The Nutcracker).

A small loser. In spite of a magnificent musical score. This film wastes much talent and should not have been made.

This movie has the same problem that plagued Beauty and the Beast 2017 and Alice through the looking glass. Yes, it looks good. Yes, it kinda entertains. And yes, it´s not a god awful movie to sit through. But it´s predictable and cliched to the point where no ammount of red herrings can fool and no ammount of fake thrill can make you excited. And worse of all, it has no heart, no emotion, no motivation. There´s nothing memorable or endearing. The character are not characters, they are bland plot devices (Clara and the Nutecracker), glorified and irrelevant extras (like it sadly happens with the Flower king and the king of the land of snowflakes) or just swift cameos ( Morgan Freeman and Mother Gingerbread). The have no dimension, no porpuse, nothing that coud make the audience care about what happens to them or the story. This is by war thebiggest flaw of the movie. Why would the audience care about a movie when its characters are so boring and dull? To add to its non existent characterization, the world building is just as awful. You never get to explore this world, to know its habitants. It feels like a superficial tour where the guide doesn´t even bother to explain what is happening, or why you should care about what you are seeing. You get to point A to point B and finally to point C, only to get thrown out of the bus without the chance to ask what the hell just happened. This is a lazy cluster of a mess, an empty husk devoid of anything resembling human emotion. I´m actually amazed someone was paid to write this thing. I´ve seen works online made by fans that are far better in both narrative structure and characterization. What a shame. You can actually see the potential this idea once had.

At its attempt to be unique and edgy, the creators made a film that is real cheesy, at times boring, predictable, and unnecessarily dramatic in the choice of music and manner with which particular characters responded to each other. I was very disappointed because I love the story of the Nutcracker. This adaptation really tanked.

"The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" is one of the best live-action Disney film. It contains all the magic and the score by James Newton Howard perfectly contains the beloved suits from "The Nutcracker" by Tchaikovsky, while also being new. Keira Knightley is perfect as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Great family film!