The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

Disney’s adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 fantasy and Tchaikovsky’s ballet is a muddled mess. On Christmas Eve in Victorian London, young Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy) is demonstrating her elaborate Rube Goldberg-type mousetrap to her younger brother. Although their mother recently died, their father (Matthew Macfadyen) and older sister (Ellie Bamber) are determined to celebrate the holiday. Clara’s gift is an ornate egg-shaped box with a cryptic message “Everything you need is inside.” But there’s no key. Clara’s eccentric godfather, Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman), creates an elaborate treasure hunt, so that each child can find his/her own gift. Clara’s is the key, which is promptly snatched by a mischievous mouse, leading her into an Alice in Wonderland-ish parallel world where she’s befriended by a Nutcracker soldier (Jayden Fowora-Knight), who reveals that her mother was Queen of the Four Realms. So Clara is greeted as Princess by Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley) from the Land of Sweets, Hawthorne (Eugenio Derbez) from the Land of Flowers, and icicle-bearded Shiver (Richard E. Grant) from the Land of Snowflakes. The fourth realm belongs to towering Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), who has declared war and Clara is expected to stop it. Yet things are not what they seem. Meanwhile, lovely ballerina Misty Copeland twirls on a picture-book stage set and a gigantic CGI mouse is comprised of a multitude of tiny mice moving as one. So what went wrong? Perhaps it began with Ashleigh Powell’s revisionist script, which was subsequently changed by director Lasse Hallström, who was replaced at the helm by Joe Johnston. Lacking a unified vision, this is mostly just a chaotic extravaganza. Optional. [Note: Blu-ray extras include the production featurettes “Unwrapping” (7 min.) and “On Pointe: A Conversation with Misty Copeland” (5 min.), deleted scenes (4 min.), and the music videos “Fall On Me” by Andrea Bocelli featuring Matteo Bocelli and “The Nutcracker Suite” by Lang Lang. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are bonus DVD and digital copies of the film. Bottom line: a small extras package for a disappointing live-action Disney film.] (S. Granger)