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'The Nutcracker and the Four Realms'

Review of Disney's New Holiday Movie (NOT SPOILER FREE)

By E.A. ForsterPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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Mackenzie Foy as Clara

The Nutcracker is a classic. I remember my mom reading the story every Christmas, I remember going to see the ballet as a kid. I remember growing up on the Barbie movie version of the story.

I'm an adult now, and I love the story still, and love Tchaikovsky's music more than anything. I was thrilled to go see the movie because its music I love and that's deeply nostalgic to me. It stars Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, and Morgan Freeman, so what could go wrong?

I would like to start by saying I enjoyed the movie. It was sweet and had wonderful music and technical elements. For the most part, the acting was wonderful, though there were some moments the character's felt out of place. It is a fun family movie, and I'm glad I went to see it, but I equally believe the movie meant little to me sentimentally.

I enjoyed Clara's arc and how it showed the versatility of Mackenzie Foy as an actress, but I felt overall her character wasn't very compelling and the tension with her father felt forced. The beginning of the film felt out of place, considering how timeless the story is and how unfamiliar the idea of a dead mother and an older sister are to that story. I feel the twist had a lot of potential, but was thrown in as an inconsistent plot point.

I understand that the dynamic she has with her mother is supposed to make the realms and make her eventual connection to Mother Ginger more compelling, but instead it felt very forced and predictable.

The twist of the Sugar Plum Fairy roughly followed the same lines. While watching, the shift in Keira Knightley's character was wonderful to see because of her prowess as an actress, it wasn't compelling as a plot point. I watched it understanding this was the climax, but it felt like there were no stakes. It was a moment where it was clear it was truly a family movie, and this was the type of conflict only suited for kids. At the same time the whole twist with the army of tin soldiers was exactly what happens in the second Santa Clause movie, the ones with Tim Allen. So the twist became not only very predictable, but stale in a comical way. The climax of the movie was, in my opinion, bad enough that it was hilarious.

I feel a very important part of family movies is appealing to all ages, and I think the movie failed in that department. I think it's a good kids movie, but it has little appeal for older audiences. The story was altered enough that it didn't have the classic charm of the nutcracker story and the music wasn't present enough to make up for that. The movie would have made an interesting enough story if it weren't for the fact that it's an ages old tale that didn't hold up in the retelling.

As for the production value, the movie was phenomenal. The costumes and the immersion of the scenery was fantastic. There were moments, particularly while Misty Copeland was dancing, where the music was incredibly powerful. The costumes were wonderful, especially in the way they differentiated between the realms individually and the fantasy world from the real world.

I would not say the movie is bad, and I would actually say it's good. The only thing is, I feel it was truly marketed toward children in its production, but the advertising was better for a family. The discrepancy between that made it the tiniest bit disappointing, but overall still good.

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About the Creator

E.A. Forster

A fan of literature and cinema, following civil rights and the LGBT+ community. History enthusiast, artist, writer, and journalist.

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