Despite the eye-popping sets, magnificent costumes, beautiful music and stunning ballet in this Disney extravaganza, this story just doesn’t ring true.
It is a retelling of “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” by E.T.A. Hoffman combined with Marius Petipa’s “The Nutcracker Ballet” with only partial segments of the majestic music adapted from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker.” With all those elements, it should have been more than eye candy. It’s one more story of a child going on an adventure to a magical land, but this story isn’t particularly magic.
The diverse cast is first rate but some of the talent is wasted. MacKenzie Foy (Interstellar, The Conjuring) plays Clara. And right from the beginning, we have another Disney movie where there is a parent missing. Clara is sad, as is her father and siblings. Her mother is gone and Christmas is coming.
Clara’s father gives her the gift of a locked, jeweled egg from her Mother, but the key to unlock it is missing. Her Godfather, Drosselmeyer, is played by Morgan Freeman (who says he had trouble saying his character’s name for awhile.) Drosselmeyer is an inventor who has encouraged Clara’s interest in science and engineering. This is a positive message throughout the film and if you want to inspire little girls in your realm, you may want to take them to see it.
Drosselmeyer urges Clara to use her smarts to pursue finding the key to open the egg. That sets the adventure into the four realms: Flowers, Snowflakes, Sweets and Amusements. It’s all very pretty. The sets were built out, instead of using green screen. They are extremely detailed and extravagant.
MacKenzie Foy is excellent and earnest in the role and one of the few who doesn’t overact in the film. She likes the message too, which is not in the ballet or the book. But she enjoyed getting to do stunts even more. She has a martial arts background. Most of all, she loved being in scenes with Misty Copeland on the set dancing.
This is Misty Copeland’s first film. She has performed “The Nutcracker” ballet countless times besides seeing it as many growing up. She is also excited that her performance will be on film forever, and allows young people of color to be inspired seeing a Black ballerina perform classical ballet. But only part of “The Nutcracker” ballet is shown and only parts of her performing it.
Have to be critical here. Misty Copeland is one of the best ballerinas ever to grace a stage, but the choreography is frustrating to watch because it is over edited. The camera never shows us her entire body in motion for more than a few seconds at a time. You finally get to see this incredible performer up close, but you will see feet, then torso cut off, a turn from above, so disjointed it is hard to appreciate the full measure of the choreography. Copeland is a prima ballerina and we would have liked to see more without as much camera work isolating parts of her dance instead of the whole.
Keira Knightly is totally over the top as the Sugar Plum Fairy with a sweet but funny voice she tried out on kids in a playground before adapting it for her character in the film. She plays a little too cutesy at times making you suspicious of her motives and that makes what happens fairly predictable.
The big villain in this film appears to be the garishly made up Helen Mirren as Mother Ginger. That make-up is scary and her character is not fully developed.
Jayden Fowora-Knight is the Nutcracker, Captain Philip Hoffman, who becomes Clara’s guide and protector as she negotiates the realms. He’s the self-proclaimed protector of the Three Realms who was brought to life by a combination of magic and science which is a continuation of the good message. We think his character still lacks warmth and his stiffness reminded us of the tin soldier in The Wizard of Oz, until you see him dance over the credits at the end of the film.
That leads into music maybe even more inspiring than the film when Andrea Bocelli and his son Matteo, sing the duet, “Fall on Me” over the credits. This film has all the elements. It’s filled with eye candy and a huge cast of excellent actors, but the story is so convoluted, it may leave you cold in a realm of confusion.
