Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a feature film adaption of the The Nutcracker ballet and the classic children’s novel The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.
Mackenzie Foy stars as Clara, a young girl mourning the passing of her mother, who is given a gift on Christmas Eve, a silver egg that requires a special key to open, but the key wasn’t included. At an event thrown by Drosselmeyer, played my Morgan Freeman, Clara is lead by a golden thread into the Christmas Tree Forest, where she soon finds her key, but it is stolen before she can reach it by a pesky mouse, and the chase to retrieve it begins.
Along the way she meets a whole cast of characters including Sugar Plum, played by Keira Knightly, Mother Ginger played by Helen Mirren and a Nutcracker Soldier by the name of Philip.
The film is visually stunning, the amount of attention to detail that is put into the costuming and set is simply outstanding. One great example is the stage at Drosselmeyer’s party, which is only shown for a few seconds, but looks to be completely handmade and incredibly detailed. No expense has been spared here. The costumes are simple but still amazing, nothing is over the top and it keeps with the vision of the film, as there is always that temptation to go all out.
Although the plot wasn’t super strong, I feel the film did a great job of blending tradition film making with several ballet dance scenes (although not by the main cast), with music from the Nutcracker ballet, mostly at the party scene, to create a solid adaption of the source materials. I was skeptical walking in and left the cinema as a believer that this film is fantastic and I’d recommend it for people of all ages.