The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, a mixed-up bag of coal

Why does this film have two directors? I wondered as the credits rolled in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms started. By the middle of the film I was wondering how much worse the film could’ve been had it not actually had two directors. Much like any number of recent films (Solo, The Last Jedi, JLA) that have had integral people behind the scenes replaced; the result is a jumbled mess that’s barely entertaining and leave you wondering how this all came about.

To be fair, I wasn’t expecting The Nutcracker and the Four Realms to be any good. Based on the trailers I was expecting an action centric Four Realms that had more in common with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe than a classic short story that became the ballet that most people associate it with. How they could make a story that most people associate with a ballet into something fun to watch for the masses would be to put Clara Stahlbaum in the Nakatomi Plaza.

It’s ironic then that some of the best elements of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms are the ballet sequences. There is only one segment during the film that involves them and it’s quite lovely. A large menacing rat, an incredibly talented ballerina and a nice voiceover by Keira Knightly help explain exactly what’s going on in the ballet.

Unfortunately that scene is only about three minutes and then it’s back to the mostly joyless affair that’s living in the shell of a seasonal film. Think of an aspect of a live-action Disney film that’s annoyed you and it’s represented here.  One would expect the grand spectacle of a Disney film and the film accomplishes that.

Alas in their zeal to paint a wide canvas they’ve sucked in numerous other influences that are more bothersome than entertaining. Eugenio Dorbez as the Flower Realm King is a mix between Nathan Lane and Hank Azaria’s characters from The Birdcage. Morgan Freeman is in the film too, if nothing else than just to disprove the reputation that he can’t be in a bad movie. Keira Knightly gets the prize for having the most annoying character. Her character, Sugar Plum Fairy speaks in an impossibly high voice throughout the film. I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney entertained the idea of hiring a voice over artist to normalize it, a la trying to CGI erase Henry Cavil’s moustache in JLA.

The good news is that children ages 9-10 will enjoy the film. We went with two 9-year olds and they both loved it. The girl said that the film would be good for girls who liked to dance. The boy said that film would be good for anyone, but I suspect he was simply happy to be out past his bedtime. Those over 10 will wish that this was strictly a film about ballet, that way most in the audience could at least legitimately take a nap.

Two contemporary films to The Nutcracker and the Four Realms are A Wrinkle in Time and The Last Jedi. Both of which had their defenders, but also had lots of negativity to overcome, were expensive to produce and came from well known characters or source material. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms has flaws that are more obvious than those two films and audiences are hip to sup bar live-action productions of late from Disney. This does not bode well for their live-action Dumbo, The Lion King or Aladdin. The Dumbo trailer will play in front of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms and it doesn’t blow you away. I do hope that Disney get’s their live-action mojo back, especially if they want their streaming service to carry the cache that they’re promoting it with.