*** outta *****

3 outta 5

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a pretty weird movie by Disney and unfortunately that’s because it’s a mish-mash of ideas. For the last few years, Disney has been on a live action adaptation and “reimagining” spree.  Some classic Disney cartoons are made into live action like Beauty and the Beast in a fairly straightforward manner. Other stories get a revamped take, like the Alice in Wonderland movies or Maleficent.  The Nutcracker is one of the reimagined ones and frankly it seems like a bunch of Alice in Wonderland production designers needed the work so they rolled over into Nutcracker. Considering how action heavy this is it is pretty unrecognizable from the original story and musical ballet. But it looks grand, has a really nice visual scope, and a bunch of actors really going crazy. It’s a bit of a tonally confused mess but a pretty one.

 Clara (Mackenzie Foy) is down in the dumps on Christmas after the death of her mother so her father, (Matthew Macfadyen) takes her and her siblings to a Christmas dance. Clara has found a mysterious metal ball left behind by her mother and she has a mysterious chat with the eyepatch wearing Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman). Soon she arrives in a magical realm filled with unimaginable creatures and soldiers, one of which is the Nutcracker Hoffman (Jayden Fowora-Knight). He takes her to the Sugar Plum Fairy (Keira Knightley) who tells Clara her mother was Queen of the four realms.  However, the world has been thrown into war as the wicked Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) is threatening the peaceful realms and now Clara has to a fight where things may not be what they seem.  

Nutcracker has two directors, the first is Lasse Hallstrom who made cloying heartfelt movies like A Dog’s Purpose and Chocolat. The 2^nd director brought in later for reshoots is Joe Johnson who had made VFX heavy action wizardry like Jumanji and Captain America: The First Avenger.  There is some stuff that feels sappy, anything involving the sad family history, and a bit more action heavy like Johnson’s movies. When Sugar Plum Fairy starts going crazy, betraying allegiances and zapping people with a magic ray gun, it’s really similar to Johnson’s Captain America when Red Skull in went crazy, betraying allegiances  and starts zapping people with a magic ray gun.

Foy as Clara has some funny reactions to the constantly unfolding insanity as her various confused expressions generate yuks. Also she works well in the emotional scenes like when she finally opens her mother’s gift and the futility of her quest sets in.  Although, it is never satisfactorily explained why Clara’s mother was a Queen of the realms, how she did all of those amazing things, and what makes Clara so special. It basically tacks on a needless Chosen One narrative to Clara. The titular Nutcracker himself is almost an afterthought in his own movie, barely doing anything expect looking steadfast and determined next to Clara. Fowora-Knight does earnest really well and there is a great moment near the end where he is almost skewered by a slowly advancing tin solider. Putting in a truly mad performance is Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy and it is consistently enjoyably crazy. Since she is full of candy there are awesome little touches like when she starts stress eating her candy hair. Mirren just kind of looks glum most of the time which is a shame because she can be a genuinely fun actress.

Macfadyen as the father looks pretty bummed being a single dad. His entire character motivation seems to be wanting to a dance on Christmas with his daughter which he repeats to the point where it becomes less heartfelt and more creepy.  There are two guardsmen in the kingdom, Cavalier (Omid Djalili) and Harelquin (Jack Whitehall) and they’re in the pretty generic Disney funny sidekick mold like Pimon and Tumbaa from Lion King. They’re alright but it’s emblematic of the movie’s somewhat desperate “throw everything and see what sticks” methodology. The rulers of the other two realms, Shiver (Richard E. Grant) and Hawthrone (Eugenio Derbez), are basically loud exposition pieces. Freeman says things about how special Clara is and then disappears until the end but at least the things he says are in his impressive baritone.

Still, what this movie breezes by on is the look, even though it is outlandish and sometimes garish. As this movie is inspired by a famous ballet there is an extended ballet sequence that lays out the history of the realms that is quite good and another ballet that plays over the closing credits. Considering how mellow the ballet portions are it clashes kind of badly with the bombastic action scenes involving giant steampunk robots. The music by James Newton Howard is appropriately sweeping and he puts in about a dozen different variations on the famous “Nutcracker Suite” piece of music throughout.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a movie that seems to be afflicted by a lot of different creative voices as the end result isn’t exactly coherent. But oddly it is enjoyable because of wacky moments and a bravura performance by Knightley. It doesn’t quite all hang together but it’s a wild ride.