The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018 Film) Review

With a director added to assist with extended reshoots, does this variation of the classic story crack under pressure?

Mackenzie Foy is the lead in "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms," a reimagining of E. T. A. Hoffmann's short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King." Foy plays the lead character, Clara, who travels to the world of the Four Realms in search of a key to a gift posthumously given to her by her dead mother. Kiera Knightley is the frail and hoarse Sugarplum Fairy, Helen Mirren is Mother Ginger, and newcomer Jayden Fowora-Knight is the titular Nutcracker.

Lasse Hallström, best known for having directed "My Life as a Dog" and "The Cider House Rules," directed this film. As it turns out, Joe Johnston, of "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and "Captain America: The First Avenger" fame, directed those aforementioned reshoots and as such, has been credited as another director of the film. Ashleigh Powell wrote the script for "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" while Mark Gordon and Larry Franco produced it. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is the distributor.

Introduction

It's practically become a requirement for any major film these days to have reshoots late in its production. These often tend to make or break a movie. As a result, you either have a situation where reshoots save a movie from being awful or only clutter the production more from endless amounts of footage caution confusion. The fact that "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" has reshoots does not concern me. If anything, it boosts my faith in it being good because Joe Johnston oversaw those reshoots and from the concept, this film seems to be a blend of things he's no stranger to. That is, "Nutcracker" is part period piece, similar to "The Rocketeer" or "Captain America: The First Avenger," and part special effects wonderment, like "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" or "Jurassic Park III."  That last one doesn't feel too reassuring, does it? In any case, assuming that Johnston's input pointed the film in the right direction, "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" might be a genuinely good movie. The key word is "assuming" though. Even if it is bad, it's still great that Disney's trying to produce live-action films that aren't remakes. So far this year, they've done three. "A Wrinkle in Time," which I have not yet watched despite it now being on Netflix, "Christopher Robin," a welcome surprise, and now "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms."

Overall Thoughts

In a world where Disney's live-action, non-Marvel and non-Star Wars films mostly consist of crummy and lazy remakes - or shot-by-shot translations as I like to call them - of their animated features, "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" is not that bad. However, I'd be hard-pressed to call it a good movie because for all the freshness it brings to Disney's filmography, the film itself does not have a lot of new things to offer. The plot is pretty basic, including an attempt to make it's lead character conform into the "strong, female lead" craze that's currently going about tinseltown. It's the premise that we know too well of a youth being chosen to save a fantastical land from certain doom. The movie fails to do anything new with it's set-up and thus, we have an entertaining, yet predictable story that's the least of the film's issues.

There's a lot of exposition, courtesy of Kiera Knightley's Sugar Plum Fairy, but that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is that they have this scene where they explain the history of the Four Realms through a ballet dance. That's creative, but then the Sugar Plum Fairy has to explain the dance and it kills the creativity of it all. Why? Why do you need exposition for exposition that's not trying to seem too expository. Another bothersome element of this movie some specific lines of dialogue. The movie opens and concludes in 19th century London, England, and the film doesn't do that great a job at maintaining it's time period. For example, when Clara's brother receives the Nutcracker as a gift, he teases her by calling the item her new boyfriend. I'm sorry, but I'm positive that the term "boyfriend" did not exist in the 19th century. It's easily-avoidable things like this that might've not been a problem if the filmmakers were so attentive.

The Cast

"Nutcracker" is essentially Mackenzie Foy's movie. As the lead, Foy's performance is merely okay and that's because her character makes choices and says things without conceivable cause. The script muddles her motivations and relies on the "just because" method to make it seem sensical. I might have enjoyed her character more had she been more competently-written. Foy has talent, as evidenced by her standout performance in "Interstellar," and that talent is what makes her character a passable lead. It's just not tangible enough to make her effort worthwhile.

I've always wondered why this classic story has been known throughout the decades as "The Nutcracker" when the titular character is not the main focus of the story. On that note, if I thought that previous tellings had little-to-no focus on the Nutcracker, I ain't seen nothing yet. This Nutcracker has no importance outside of the title and is no different from the other soldiers featured in the film. The humanoid soldiers, that is. He has no personality and shares no conceivable connection to Clara. Jayden Fowora-Knight's casting comes across as tokenism since he has no real consequence and, frankly, is only involved because of the movie's title. Don't believe me? He's not even a major feature on the poster and he's part of the title!

Admittedly, the leaders of the titular four realms are all colorfully designed, but the four of them have varying degrees of involvement in the story. While Eugenio Derbez and Richard E. Grant get shortchanged as the leaders of the Land of Flowers and Snowflakes, Kiera Knightley and Helen Mirren have slightly more significance in the story as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Mother Ginger. The two characters have no amount of depth to them. Though as one-dimensional as they are, they at least have some personality to them and share palpable connections to Clara. I just need one to be a more multidimensional antagonist and the other to have more screen time in order to develop her character and relationship with Clara.

Morgan Freeman's role is essentially an extended cameo. He's the wise old man that we all know and still love. I mean, Morgan Freeman is one of those actors who could be in a bad movie and I'd still love him because he's so charming on-screen.

Production Design/Score

The best part of any holiday movie is often the decor and "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" is no exception.

For as brief as we see them, the Land of Snowflakes, Flowers, and Sweets are breathtakingly beautiful sights. Despite that, I feel like pointing this out is more of a backhanded insult because we only get a good look at those lands for a few seconds. It's great that this film does a fluent blend of props and CGI, but I wish that it allowed us to see the effort that the filmmakers put into crafting such landscapes. After those precious seconds, we only view those lands from afar. Oh well, at least there's the castle.

While not seeming like all that much from this picture that I have to show you, this castle is a sight to see. It's as appealing as the castle in Disney's recent remake of "Cinderella" - the only live-action Disney film that's actually good. The structure is an architectural marvel. With the color combination and the old-timey yet otherworldly interior design, it's more engaging than the characters that inhabit the spaces. I do believe that the single, flawless part of this movie is the production design. It was so good that I wished the film had more of it.

Before I begin this section, let me express that I'm super excited to be talking about a James Newton Howard score after so long. I believe that the last time I talked about one of his scores was way back in the early days of Dallin: The Film Fanatic when I wrote my review of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." I'm so glad to be discussing one of his works again.

Sadly, out of all the scores that he's done lately, this one feels semi-underwhelming. I understand the need to incorporate Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" music, but its inclusion only hurts the score's ability to stand alone. It relies on it too much and the effort that he puts into creating new music is overshadowed.

The new themes that he composes are full of the lively holiday spirit commonly known to this type of film. It's jolly, it's comforting, and gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. The music proves itself to be worthy of the Nutcracker name, but then they fall back on Tchaikovsky's music and it only shows that the people making the music aren't confident enough in what they're creating. I understand the hesitation. It's just that the new music is so good, it's hard to see it dominated by music we've heard many times before. Not a failed score, just a misguided one.

Grade: C

Predictable, rushed, and lacking interesting characters, "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" gets by with interesting concepts, a serviceable story, and standout production design.

My grade may not be a glowing endorsement to see this in theaters and that's true. With that said, if you find yourself wanting to see a movie after having seen all other available options currently playing or soon-to-be playing, this isn't a total waste of your time and money. This is better than the live-action remakes that Disney's released lately. Still, I'd wait till it releases to all the home media formats to see it. If you do see this in theaters, it's not worth seeing it in 3D. The film gets by the old-fashioned way, without it's involvement.

Conclusion

"The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" just came out this weekend. If you have seen it, I welcome any opinions on the film and/or my review in the comments below. For those of you that haven't, does this review encourage you to check it out or dissuade you from such a decision. As always, feel free to suggest a film for me to review next. Thanks for reading, I'm Dallin, your resident Film Fanatic, and I'll be back with another editorial soon.