Plus there are creepy character designs that-while they may be a bit much for younger or more sensitive children-gave a thrilling jolt for their sheer strangeness. Divinely detailed costumes from Oscar-winner Jenny Beavan ( Mad Max: Fury Road) might be worth the price of admission alone. Typical to Hallström, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is visually delightful, flush with vivid colors. As she’s surrounded by marvelous actors who are given paltry screentime and paper-thin characters, the whole thing falls flat as a stage scrim. And we know she’s clever, because everyone says so, whether she’s fixing broken gadgets or taking absolutely everything anyone tells her at face value. When she’s not huffing, she’s determined, which is fine but not exactly interesting. Clara is often huffing, at her father for daring to ask her to dance, at the Mouse Prince for snatching away her coveted key, at siblings and toy soldiers and anyone else who doesn’t do exactly as she’d like. And while the American actress does a solid job with an English accent and looking as resolute as a Star Wars heroine, she doesn’t give us much else. Much of the film’s emotional weight rests on Foy’s slim shoulders. But poor Matthew Macfadyen, who’s won hearts in Pride and Prejudice and belly laughs in Anna Karenina, is utterly wasted as Clara’s father, whose only job is to look sad and perplexed. But she does her best with it, slinging a whip and sharp glances with equal sharpness.
It’s nearly criminal how little screentime Mirren receives. And they are given far less screen time than a simpering Jack Whitehall and a sneering Omid Djalili as a pair of snooty guards. Grant and Eugenio Derbez are buried in icicles and bouquets as the regents of the Realm of Snowflakes and Realm of Flowers respectively. Hallström’s signature sentimentality goes stiff among a cast that’s choked in one-note roles. To their credits, the finished film isn’t disjointed. And it’s difficult to know who to blame as The Nutcracker and the Four Realms has Lasse Hallström for the initial production, but Joe Johnston was called in for 32 days of reshoots. She is no fleeing damsel in distress but instead a bold girl who leaps into action and leads her own troops into battle! Unfortunately, the script’s setups are spoiled in execution. Her tweak that turned Clara into a young engineer is a bit heavy-handed but offers some great onscreen representation for girls interestest in STEM, and more importantly, makes Clara a more pro-active heroine than some old-school Disney princesses. Powell’s approach adds more action sequences and encourages the production design to run wild, crafting colorful characters, surreal spectacle, and fantastical fight scenes. With the help of a handsome nutcracker (Jayden Fowora-Knight), Clara must save her mother’s kingdom before it’s too late! Rowdy ringmaster Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) is brewing for a war, using her mice minions as her army. But her new pal the Sugar Plum Fairy (Keira Knightley) warns Clara all is not well in the four realms. Instead, she finds a portal to another world, where her mother was queen and she is honored as Princess Clara! She is swiftly swept up in the pageantry of this land of flowers, snowflakes, and candy. At his beguiling holiday party, a grieving Clara seeks out the missing key that would unlock her mother’s final gift to her. The script by Ashleigh Powell re-imagines Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy) as a child-genius who takes after her late mother, an expert engineer who was a protege to master toymaker Drosselmeyer (an eye-patched Morgan Freeman). The result is a film that’s very pretty, pretty family-friendly, but also startlingly dull. Hoffmann’s short story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” and Marius Petipa’s The Nutcracker Ballet, but folds in more intrigue, adventure, and a heavy dose of female empowerment to better entice modern audiences. This ambitious adaptation is inspired by both E. With the success of live-action, female-fronted fantasies like Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Alice and Wonderland, Disney decided to roll the dice with The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
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