I admit to curiosity upon the trailer for this one being dropped. Visually it did look derivative of the Alice in Wonderland movies, which unfortunately I am not a fan, but there was some sense of wonder instilled and a sense of magic to the trailer. I am a bit late to the game on this one and the other review going up today due to a vacation so really the final tally is set for this film, but

Did audiences and critics miss the mark on The Nutcracker?

This film probably gets one of the more accurate credits in the “Suggested by the short story”, versus based on, inspired by, etc, of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Screenplay and Screen Story credit goes to first timer Ashleigh Powell. She’s been working in Hollywood as a production assistant for years and submitting screenplays and scripts since at least 2012, but this is the first one to make it to the screen. I can’t really get a feel for her off this script, as it feels like a watered down version of Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, and a touch of Hugo.  We have the story of a girl out of place in her home since the death of her mother, she does have a loving father, brother, and sister which is a breath of fresh air. She is clever and an inventor, showing off her understanding with a Rube Goldberg machine in the opening tracking shot. Of course this puts her even more out of place in classic Victorian London. She inexplicably finds her way into a fantasy world and must save it from dark forces who seek to rule it all. The plot is basic. Discover who you are and you can do anything. Make some friends along the way. Come back to the world at the end with some important life lessons.

If this sounds very much like Alice in Wonderland and it’s sequel you are 100% correct. If this looks at all like it and the other films mentioned, you are also 100% correct. I just don’t know why though. You have Joe Johnston at the helm who gave us Captain America: The First Avenger and The Rocketeer. He has such a sense for evocation in his films, yet there’s none of that here. Maybe the other director Lasse Hallstrom is behind that? Yet he is a multiple award nominee with such films like The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Either of these two should have been able to evoke emotion in the style of the film. Awe, Wonder should have been easy, not to mention a sense of triumph or joy, or even risk and threat. The movie contains none of that and I am profoundly surprised and disappointed, and have to look to the producers perhaps? Some of the producers here go back to movies such as The Thing (1982 version), or Saving Private Ryan, others are first timers.

I could talk about the acting here, but MacKenzie Foy tries, but doesn’t seem to be getting a lot to work with. The script, the direction, even the background production design seems to be fighting her; literally in one scene Helen Mirren is wasted as is Kierra Knightley. Morgan Freeman seems to have just walked on set, got dressed, put on an eye patch and collected his check. Speaking of the production design I think it was left overs from all the other movies I’ve mentioned combined as nothing is striking or evoking here.

TL:DR?

This movie is a hot mess. It has all the elements behind the scenes to make it work, but nothing in it quite does. There’s no strong sense of visual style, direction, or music in the movie. I mean music beyond the Nutcracker Suite of course. Something is wrong in the House of Mouse here; as nothing in this movie feels like what anyone in this movie is capable of. The script needed a few rewrites. The editing was…a thing that happened badly. I am not sure what went on in pre-production or post production here, but something did. Something not good.

The Nutcracker is a bloody mess from start to finish and I could tell you a half dozen ways to fix it but no one did. This feels like contractual obligation the movie and it just doesn’t care beyond that. There are tonal issues, where the movie screeches to a halt for an actual balet in it, and I wonder who this movie is for? At best I can say it was an obligation and it was for no one in particular.

So would you see it again?

No. No I wouldn’t.

What about buying it?

Probably not.

Anything about it good?

There are beautiful elements to the production design, but thats about it.

Are you being harsher because you saw a better movie first?

I weighed that and unfortunately that isn’t the case.

This one just isn’t that good.