Synopsis
When Clara’s mother leaves her a mysterious gift, she embarks on a journey to four secret realms—where she discovers her greatest strength could change the world.
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Cast
- Mackenzie FoyClara Stahlbaum
- Jayden Fowora-KnightCaptain Phillip Hoffman
- Tom SweetFritz Stahlbaum
- Keira KnightleySugar Plum Fairy
- Helen MirrenMother Ginger
- Morgan FreemanDrosselmeyer
- Eugenio DerbezHawthorne
- Matthew MacfadyenBenjamin Stahlbaum
- Richard E. GrantShiver
- Sergei PoluninSweets Cavalier
Recommendations
- 65
IGN
An uneven and festive offering brimming with glitter and gaudiness that excels when it embraces its strangeness and the brilliance of the production design. - 60
The Guardian
I have to admit to being helplessly enchanted – or suckered – for the most part. There’s wit here and The Nutcracker will take you from zero to Christmas jumper in the opening sequence. What’s missing is the melancholy darkness of ETA Hoffmann’s story. Instead, schmaltz-merchant director Lasse Hallström tugs at the heartstrings and ladles on the syrup. - 58
The A.V. Club
Every aspect of of the movie feels as if it’s been determined by algorithm, workshopped and test-marketed into a state of pleasant, fleeting dullness. - 50
Boston Globe
What starts as a modest, agreeable riff on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tale — and, more relevantly, Tchaikovsky’s ballet — eventually veers into stultifying action, rote twists, and other badly forced contemporary tweaks. - 50
Entertainment Weekly
The rare quiet moments in Nutcracker suggest Foy might be a real movie star. Let’s give her a real movie and find out. - 38
Movie Nation
Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms offers up a heaping helping of eye candy and treacle for the holidays, If only they’d had a coherent story and a good actress in the lead. If only those were the only two serious shortcomings in this brainless, cotton candy bauble. - 38
Slant Magazine
One may wish that the entire film had restaged the entirely of Tchaikovsky's ballet rather than reimagine it as an ultimately lifeless epic fantasy. - 33
IndieWire
For a movie with so much stuff to look at, the only things you really see during The Nutcracker and the Four Realms are all of the recent movies that it’s flagrantly trying to recycle.
