The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) review

In 1816, German author E.T.A. Hoffman published The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which told the story of a young girl named Marie who ends up on a fantastical adventure with the sentient Nutcracker toy that was given to her at Christmas. But when it comes to the most famous interpretation of this story, that distinction goes to the 1892 ballet The Nutcracker, which was based off a revised version of Hoffman’s story written by Alexandre Dumas and featured music from composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. While its initial production did not fare well with critics, it has since gone on to be performed by numerous ballet groups worldwide, with Tchaikovsky’s music now regarded as some of the best and most recognizable melodies of all-time. The Nutcracker has also played a prominent role in the world of film thanks to its prominent use in Disney’s musical anthology film Fantasia and various film adaptations of the ballet that have been made over the years. And now Disney takes another crack at this story with The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, a film that experienced an interesting bit of development during its production. From the get-go, the film was directed by veteran filmmaker Lasse Hallstrom, whose work includes critically-acclaimed projects like 1993’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and 1999’s The Cider House Rules. But when it was announced that the film would be undergoing a series of reshoots, it was revealed that Hallstrom was unable to return due to scheduling conflicts. Fellow veteran filmmaker Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Captain America: The First Avenger) was brought in to direct the reshoots, and unlike the other major release this week that experienced a directorial switch-up during its production, Bohemian Rhapsody, Hallstrom and Johnston ended up sharing the film’s final directorial credit. What follows is a film that is truly something to behold when it comes to both its highlights and its shortcomings.

In the bustling city of Victorian-era London, young Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy) regularly exhibits her passion for science and inventing, a trait that she’s inherited from her mother Marie. However, since her mother’s passing, Clara has grown emotionally distant from her family, especially her father (Matthew Macfadyen) who has pressured the family to maintain a respectable image amongst their peers in the wake of their recent tragedy. On Christmas Eve, Clara is given one last present from her mother in the form of a porcelain egg-shaped box that she cannot open as she doesn’t have the key for it. In her efforts to try and open it, Clara meets with her godfather Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman), a noted inventor, during his annual Christmas party. And while he doesn’t have the key either, Clara is eventually led on an adventure to find it when she partakes in his annual gift-giving process by following a string through his mansion. This string ends up leading her into a fantastical world that is divided up into Four Realms, including the Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy (Keira Knightley), the Land of Flowers, ruled by Hawthorne (Eugenio Derbez), and the Land of Snowflakes, ruled by Shiver (Richard E. Grant). There, she learns that her mother was the queen of this world and helped bring all its inhabitants to life. However, the three main realms have also been in conflict recently with Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), the ruler of the Fourth Realm, the Land of Amusements, who had previously attempted to take over the whole kingdom. Learning that the key to her porcelain egg also operates a special device that can help them deal with Mother Ginger and her army of mice, Clara finds herself on a quest to retrieve the key so that she can save the Four Realms and gain a greater understanding of her mother’s past.  

Like many other recent live-action Disney films, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms does sport some amazing visuals that help bring the fantastical world of the Nutcracker to life. And sure, just like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland films, sometimes this film goes a bit overboard with its CGI but said CG is generally well-handled and is then bolstered by solid cinematography from Damien Chazelle’s go-to cinematographer Linus Sandgren. Things get a little more complicated, however, when it comes to its story. With no clear indication yet as to what parts of the film were done by Johnston rather than Hallstrom, there’s never really a point in the film where it feels like a direct competition between the visions of its two directors. And yet, there is a noticeable inconsistency when it comes to the film’s overall tone. While some parts of it are more serious in tone to emphasize the dramatic parts of the story (e.g. Clara learning more about her mother’s past), other parts of the film, namely anything that takes place within the Four Realms, are far more over-the-top in nature. These two extremes frequently collide over the course of the film and, simply put, they do not gel well together in the slightest. It also doesn’t help that the film has a very short 100-minute runtime. Once Clara enters the Four Realms, the film then speeds through its story at a break-neck pace. This results in a vastly underdeveloped plot that gives you no time to comprehend its biggest twist halfway through. And because of this, this reveal ends up feeling like it came completely out of nowhere and is easily one of the most substantial deviations from its source material outside of the infamous use of Nazi imagery in the 2010 film adaptation of the ballet (no joke, look it up…).   

This sense of unevenness also applies to the film’s cast, with half of them giving reserved, serious performances and the other half giving unabashedly over-the-top performances, and because of the film’s breezy pace, many of their characters don’t get much to do story-wise. But for the most part, several of them manage to do a good job with their limited material. Of them all, the most prominent standout of the cast is Mackenzie Foy in the lead role of Clara. In a cast that includes multiple Oscar winners and/or nominees, Foy impressively manages to carry the whole film as its sympathetic and smart female lead. She also works quite well with newcomer Jayden Fowora-Knight, who plays the title role of Philip the Nutcracker Soldier, who sticks with her through thick and thin while also being one of the saner characters in this crazy world. Another major standout is Helen Mirren as Mother Ginger who, despite being built up as the film’s main antagonist, ends up benefitting from the previously mentioned plot twist that reveals a bit more to her character than originally anticipated. But the one who is the most affected by this plot twist (and not exactly in as good of a way as Mirren) is Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy… though, to her credit, she does commit to this character and all the craziness that comes with it in a performance that can only be seen to be believed. And as for Morgan Freeman as Drosselmeyer? Well, despite what the marketing for this film suggests, he’s literally in it for about three to five minutes in the beginning and then he doesn’t show up again until the end.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms… is certainly a ‘unique’ film, I’ll give it that. I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s as ‘bad’ as some critics are saying it is, but at the same time, it’s not that great, either. In fact, to be perfectly blunt, it’s quite a bit of a mess, though this isn’t entirely because the film ended up crediting two different directors. Ultimately its biggest issue is that it’s incredibly inconsistent with its tone, often going between serious drama and over-the-top kookiness in the blink of an eye. And despite the best efforts of some of its cast members, they’re all waylaid by an undercooked plot that bases itself around a mediocre plot twist in a film that goes by so fast that there’s no time to comprehend what just happened. Now to the film’s credit, it’s well-intentioned, at the very least, given that it’s a big-budget fantasy film that focuses on a young female protagonist who’s easily one of the most proactive iterations of her classic character. And just like other recent live-action Disney films like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful, this film does boast some gorgeous CGI visuals. But as innocuous as it is, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is just… bland, which is a shame given all the work that clearly went into it from a visual standpoint. Had it been given a bit more time to flesh out its story and characters, this could’ve turned out to be a decent new take on the classic story of the Nutcracker that wasn’t primarily based around its music.

Rating: 2/5