{"id":8147,"date":"2024-11-11T23:40:26","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8147"},"modified":"2024-11-11T23:40:26","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:40:26","slug":"the-nutcracker-and-the-four-realms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/11\/the-nutcracker-and-the-four-realms\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nutcracker and the Four Realms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Nutcracker and the Four Realms<\/strong> (2018)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Fantasy-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some mild peril)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Lasse Hallstrom and Joe Johnston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ashleigh Powell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James Newton Howard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Linus Sandgren\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 2, 2018 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mackenzie Foy, Keira Knightley, Eugenio Derbez, Richard E. Grant, Jayden Fowora-Knight, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Matthew Macfadyen, Ellie Bamber, Tom Sweet, Omid Djalili, Jack Whitehall, Anna Madeley, Misty Copeland, Sergei Polunin, Gustavo Dudamel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $54.9M (US)\/$174M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0By way of describing the experience of watching Disney\u2019s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms<\/strong>, let me paint you a mental picture. Imagine receiving a Christmas present from a loved one on Christmas Eve. It\u2019s ornately wrapped in shiny gold paper and a silky red bow with sparkles. It\u2019s a pretty good size so you expect to find something great inside. You open it only to find a pack of socks, one of those 10 pairs for $5 deals, from Wal-Mart. It\u2019s like that. It comes in fancy packaging, but there\u2019s really nothing inside. It\u2019s as hollow a viewing experience as any of the many failed attempts at a new holiday classic over the past couple of decades. Jim Carrey as Scrooge anyone? I didn\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Based on both the ballet (\u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d) and the short story (\u201cThe Nutcracker and the Mouse King\u201d), The Nutcracker and the Four Realms<\/strong> is yet another attempt by Disney at an FX-heavy blockbuster that doesn\u2019t bear a brand name like Star Wars, Marvel or Pirates of the Caribbean. They\u2019ve had pretty bad luck in this area with non-hits like Tomorrowland, The BFG and A Wrinkle in Time (which barely cracked the $100 million mark). This latest effort will surely join the ranks of the undistinguished. While not the worst of its ilk, it\u2019s certainly not worth schlepping the whole family to see.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It just wouldn\u2019t be a Disney movie without a dead parent, right? That\u2019s the situation our heroine Clara (Foy, Interstellar) finds herself in at the outset of the movie. It\u2019s Christmas Eve and she doesn\u2019t feel like celebrating. It\u2019s the first Christmas without her mother and the whole family is feeling it. Not that she would know. It seems like all her father (Macfadyen, Pride & Prejudice) cares about is keeping up appearances at the big party at the home of her godfather Drosselmeyer (Freeman, Dolphin Tale) that night. Before they head out, he hands each of his children a gift from their late mother. Clara receives a locked golden egg-shaped box without a key. It comes with a note telling her it contains all she\u2019ll ever need.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At the party, the kids are given threads that lead to their gifts. Clara\u2019s leads to a magical, parallel world that could very well be Narnia. All that\u2019s missing is the lion, witch and wardrobe. It\u2019s in this world that she will find the key needed to open her box. Obtaining the key, however, will be tricky. You see, this world is comprised of four realms (hence the title), three of which- the Land of Flowers, the Land of Snowflakes and the Land of Sweets- are at war with the fourth, the Land of Amusements. It\u2019s become a fearsome place ruled by Mother Ginger (Mirren, The Queen) who wants to conquer the other three realms with the help of her army of mice. The ruler of the Land of Sweets, Sugar Plum (Knightley, Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3), informs Clara that her deceased mother was the queen of this world making her a princess (another Disney trope) whose task it is to restore peace and harmony to a once-tranquil place. This means going to war with Mother Ginger. But first, Clara needs to retrieve the key from the fourth realm.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the spirit of fairness, I must say that some of the visuals in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms<\/strong> are stunning. It\u2019s pretty to look at. HOWEVER, this does little to distract the viewer from the dull, convoluted storyline. In fact, it\u2019s hard to miss how boring this movie is. Even at 99 minutes, it still feels dragged out. There\u2019s nothing to engage the viewer. It doesn\u2019t stoke the imagination. It\u2019s unfocused which I suppose is mainly due to two different directors being at the helm. Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules) was the original director, but when a scheduling conflict prevented him from returning for reshoots (with extensive CGI), Joe Johnston (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids) took over. This would explain the abrupt tonal shifts from which the movie never recovers. As for the CGI effects, they\u2019re clearly CGI. There\u2019s nothing special about these effects.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What really stings is that the actors don\u2019t look like they\u2019re having any fun. Pretty much every performance feels forced. They deliver their dialogue in a stilted manner. Foy, while an engaging presence, can\u2019t really do a British accent. It\u2019s iffy at best. Knightley gets points for at least trying to ham it up as the ultra-perky and super-duper-sweet Sugar Plum (love that cotton candy colored hair!) but it\u2019s all for naught. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms<\/strong> is a hopeless mess. It\u2019s weird in that there\u2019s a lot going on yet it\u2019s not nearly enough. It drags at several points. The drama concerning Clara\u2019s grief is hackneyed. It\u2019s highly derivative of the first Narnia movie and Tim Burton\u2019s Alice in Wonderland. Nutcracker purists will be turned off by dearth of ballet save for a couple of brief sequences (including one in the end credits). Also, it only contains a few snatches of Tchaikovsky\u2019s music. Instead, we get an instantly forgettable score by James Newton Howard).<\/p>\n

\u00a0It should be noted that it isn\u2019t a good idea to bring small children to see The Nutcracker and the Four Realms<\/strong>. Some of the visuals, like the giant mouse made of hundreds of little mice, are bound to give them nightmares. On the other hand, if they\u2019re not freaked out by The Boxtrolls, it\u2019s probably safe to let them watch this one. Except there\u2019s nothing to see. This is a movie that\u2019s clearly bored with itself. It\u2019s as soulless and empty as the Santa Land staffed by indifferent teens at the local mall. If those involved don\u2019t care, why should we? I predict The Nutcracker and the Four Realms<\/strong> will be a distant memory by the time Christmas rolls around in two months.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Fantasy-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some mild peril)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Lasse Hallstrom and Joe Johnston\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ashleigh Powell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James Newton Howard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Linus Sandgren\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 2, 2018 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mackenzie Foy, Keira Knightley, Eugenio Derbez, Richard E. Grant, Jayden Fowora-Knight, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Matthew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holiday-movies","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Nutcracker-and-the-Four.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8147"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8322,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8147\/revisions\/8322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}