![]() ![]() ![]() Clara gets an egg-shaped box with no key to open it. Not to mention that her father insists she wear dead mum’s dress - creepy, right? Mum has left gifts behind for her children. Her mum has recently died (there goes Disney again with the dead parent thing) and neither Clara nor her siblings are in the mood to follow their mopey dad (Matthew Macfadyen) to a lavish Christmas ball. It’s Christmas Eve in in Victorian London, and clever Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy), the 14-year-old embodiment of female empowerment, is in a funk. After that, composer James Newton Howard smothers the sounds of this perennial seasonal favorite in aural swill. Dance fans can look forward to a pair of all-too-brief appearances, including one over the end credits, from ballet great Misty Copeland. What we have here is simply a botch job with two directors - Lasse Hallstrom ( My Life as a Dog) for starters and Joe Johnston ( Jurassic Park III) for reshoots - and absolutely no personality of its own. Hoffman and a ballet with music by Tchaikovsky. ![]() What went wrong? Where to begin?!? On the surface, this Disney debacle seems like a no-brainer for the holidays: It’s an 1816 gothic fairytale by E.T.A. Rating explained: "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" draws its PG rating for some unexpected creepiness and some very brief mild profanity running time: 99 minutes.Slow torture for kids and grownups alike, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms gives a bad name to the very concept of family entertainment. It’s not enough to completely discourage families from taking their kids, but for those wanting a big-screen equivalent of the traditional "Nutcracker" experience, “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” could be a surreal disappointment. While “Four Realms” retains its PG rating, audiences might be surprised at all the creepiness mixed in with the more familiar Christmas cheer. The creepy Mouse King - a creature essentially built of hundreds of writhing CGI mice - kicks things off, but there’s plenty of macabre eccentricity to follow, such as a group of clowns that interact like a set of stacking Russian matryoshka dolls. There’s also an effort to diversify the cast and mine a theme of female empowerment, but Hallstrom and Johnston seem more interested in “Four Realms’” spectacle, which is firmly on the Tim Burton end of the visual spectrum. There’s a bit more story to work with - and a twist or two - but the whole thing still feels a little on the thin side. Grant) and Hawthorne (Eugenio Derbez), the respective regents of the other three realms. The adventure that follows hints at familiar elements from the ballet and periodically references Tchaikovsky’s musical cues as Clara interacts with characters like Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley), Shiver (Richard E. It's also Mother Ginger who has Clara’s key, which apparently opens more than her mom’s old egg. This new world is divided into four realms, and Clara learns that three of them - the Lands of Sweets, Snowflakes and Flowers - are at war against the fourth, which used to be called the Land of Amusements until its leader, Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), tried to overthrow the others. In this version of the story, Clara and her mother are both inventors - very mechanically inclined - and Drosselmeyer is a kindred spirit.Ībandoning the party in search of the key, Clara winds up crossing over into a dazzling fantasyland where she meets a nutcracker guard named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), encounters a creepy creature called the Mouse King and learns that before her passing, her mother was considered a queen. Unfortunately, the special key is missing, so when the family heads out to their godfather Drosselmeyer's (Morgan Freeman) party, Clara seeks his help. (Don’t worry, the nutcracker is still coming.) Louise gets her mother’s favorite dress, Fritz gets a set of wooden soldiers and Clara gets a mysterious silver egg that requires a special key to open. Stahlbaum gives each of his kids a gift left to them by their mother. Just before heading out to a family party on Christmas Eve, Mr. Stahlbaum (Matthew Macfadyen), is trying to keep the Christmas spirit alive, but Clara, her older sister Louise (Ellie Bamber) and younger brother Fritz (Tom Sweet) are slow to board Santa’s sleigh. Teenage Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy) and her family are mourning the recent passing of her mother. Like the ballet, “Four Realms” follows the adventures of a young girl who crosses into a fantasy world on a cold Christmas Eve. ![]()
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