The Nutcracker and The Four Realms

When it comes to adapting any classic piece of media for the umpteenth time, there's a natural inclination to update and rejigger the source material to meet today's standards. Or, whatever the creators deem to be today's standards. With "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms," Tchaikovsky's timeless ballet has been remade to be more fantastical and, in the process, gets stretched thin over a modern veneer. The lavish design and direction take center stage in a story that doesn't get fleshed out enough to sustain such an expensive production. Eye-catching visuals try to detract the viewer from a story that's just as hollow as the wooden figurines it draws inspiration from.

It's Christmas Eve and a young girl named Clara (Mackenzie Foy) receives a mysterious gift that she learns is from her recently deceased mother. The gift, an egg-shaped lockbox of which she does not have the key, leads her on an adventure to a mystical world made of four realms. In that mystical world, Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) spreads fear while Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley) struggles to unite all of the creatures in peace. There's some harebrained prophecy that Clara is unwittingly a part of and things end up being not what they seem. Sound familiar? That's because "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" is not only an adaptation but another lifeless big-budget extravaganza that doesn't justify its own existence. Even with the performances straining for camp, the onus is put on the effects work to enliven the dead-in-the-water material.

Shot on 35mm film and finished at 2K because of all the visual effects work, "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" looks stunning on the 4K Blu-ray that Disney has released. That's part of why watching this lovingly-detailed film gets so frustrating, because no expense was spared in fully realizing the universe that this takes place in. With a tale like "The Nutcracker," the viewer is most likely going in knowing what the story is about and where it takes place.

While scant on special features, there's a curious featurette titled "Unwrapping "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" that very succinctly details why this production was doomed to fail. The cast talks the design work up as if they're telling a story through movement and not a spoken narrative, but this doesn't have the formal rigor or format as the original ballet production does. This is a Hollywood adaptation that strains to update old material to make it more incident-driven and more than a few cracks in the porcelain show.

"The Nutcracker and the Four Realms"
Blu-ray
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