![]() ![]() It’s a pity that it’s all so extraneous to the story, because it’s also the only part of the movie that’s actually focused on music and dance. Just as Clara has come up against her first major obstacle, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms diverts itself into a load of exposition, much of it accomplished in a literal, in-universe pageant about the different Realms - that is, all the ones we don’t actually visit during the film. ![]() Laurie Sparhamĭespite the low bar of surpassing The Nutcracker’s plot, the movie struggles with pacing. Misty Copeland as the Ballerina Princess. In a series of awkward narrative hops and skips, Clara finds out her mother was a queen here, she is the rightful heir, and she is needed in order to end a war between the three good realms and the Fourth Realm, which has betrayed the others. She doesn’t like dancing or doing her hair, and she doesn’t want to do what’s expected of her! Indeed, she is not like other girls, so when her mother’s final Christmas presents to her three children are a dress, a box of toy soldiers, and the key to a magical world of toys and candy brought to life, this is apparently supposed to be an equitable reward for Clara’s perspicacity.įrom this family exposition, Clara swiftly falls down the rabbit hole and into a land where it’s always winter and always Christmas. In directors Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston’s version, Clara is the middle child of a nebulously Victorian-age London family that is spending its first Christmas after the death of Clara’s mother, Marie.Ĭlara, we are shown multiple times - and once, very awkwardly, told - is different. Moviegoers expecting The Nutcracker and the Four Realms to follow the story of The Nutcracker ballet will be disappointed, but that’s not a bad thing in and of itself. After all, the original Nutcracker’s two acts have endured for more than 125 years with about enough plot to fill one. On its own, substandard plot or character work might not be enough to put Four Realms in a peppermint-scented grave. But I’m not sure it understands what it takes to grab anyone’s attention.įour Realms’ story is nothing to write home about, but its real problem is that it doesn’t do enough of the things that made its points of inspiration so successful: It fails to create truly memorable visuals, and it revels in neither music nor dance. The audience that The Nutcracker and the Four Realms seems to be reaching for most ardently is the same segment of the tween population that fell head over heels for Tim Burton’s 2010 live-action adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and its sequel. Hoffmann’s 1816 original story) - owes more to a much more recent Disney film. But this modern adaptation of the 1892 ballet - based on Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 adaptation (based on E.T.A. In a time when the ballet was rarely, if ever, performed by American ballet companies, Fantasia featured six animated segments based on its dances. ![]() ![]() The Disney company’s history with The Nutcracker extends back to an unassailable classic of animation history, Fantasia. Disney’s adaptation, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, would not have changed his opinion, and more’s the pity. Famously, composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky did not enjoy writing The Nutcracker, and remained unsatisfied with it after completion. ![]()
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