Movies in Review: "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms"

I have never seen the ballet production for The Nutcracker, although it's on my list of things to do. When I watched the trailer for the film, I was thinking great! This has to be a win-win right? I enjoy a ballet, but films are my heart, and from what I saw in the trailer I figured it had to be just as good as the ballet, or at least comparable. The trailer looked visually exciting, having me think it would leave me as visually satisfied as the first Alice in Wonderland film. The story seemed appealing, and the film very well cast. My expectations were on a level I was sure this film could meet.

I knew something was wrong when I noticed that this movie only had a running time of 90min. Which to me seems like a fairly short amount of time for such a tale...and it was. The movie really felt rushed and wasn't as visually exciting as I hoped it would be. The story was so short, there was very little time spent in any of the realms, leaving no opportunities to meet any of the beautiful characters from each realm. The realms should have been given the opportunities to shine. They were the most visually appetizing parts of the film, but there was only a time of less than 10min spent in each realm. The make-up was cheesy. I was annoyed with what they did to Helen Mirren's character's make-up. It looked like something someone doing costume make-up would do for a project. As well as those 2 soldiers who were on post at the gates. Were they really serious? The make-up was underwhelming to say the least for most of the cast, except for the Nutcracker soldier who had enough make-up on his s face to spare. His face was overdone. I kept wanting to blot it off. I thought the story was a little cheesy, with Keira Knightley giving one of her worse performances as Sugar Plum...smh.

I was hoping to love this movie, but it was weak to say the least. It had the potential to be a much better film. It felt like the movie just ran out of money and time. I didn't hate it, but I can't say I really loved it either...C+