When my wife and I saw the trailer to this movie, we actually were not really interested in it. Somehow the trailer did not create a lot of interest for us, but still since it was a Disney movie which usually translate to a good family movie, we decided to give this a try. And it so happened that the movie did play in the theater near our home and was very convenient. Well let's see what the movie was all about.
Brief Story Line
A young girl named Clara (Mackenzie Foy - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Interstellar etc) who just lost her mother was looking for ways to fit in. During the Christmas eve, in the house of his godfather Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman - Driving Miss Daisy, Million Dollar Baby etc), Clara somehow was transported to another "world" where he met with a Nutcracker soldier named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight) guarding the realms and also a bunch of mice where 1 of them stole the key Clara got from her mother.
In this other world, there were four different realms each with its own regent but the one who grew quite close with Clara was Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley - Pirates of the Caribbean series, Love Actually etc). She told Clara about the fourth realm which was dangerous and its regent Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren - The Queen, Hitchcock etc) who tried to conquer the whole realms. And the only thing that could stop her would be that key.
So Clara, Phillip and some soldiers went on a mission to collect the key and try to save this world. Could they do so? Find them all in this fantasy movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well, this movie was actually a bit better from what the trailer suggested. It did have some interesting moments and my wife seemed to have fun watching it. The early part of the movie was quite nice showing how good Clara was in terms of mechanics (I think Clara was portrayed quite good by Mackenzie Foy). And then the story was quite touching. When Clara was transported to this other world, the story became more exciting, however, I did not particularly like the ballet part. Not sure the reason for showing this, whether it was part of the story from the original story/book? Yes, according to the internet, this movie was a retelling of short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A Hoffmann and The Nutcracker by Marius Petipa.
Anyway, once the story had developed further with Clara's new mission, then the story pace did keep up nicely. I thought that the moments when she and Phillip started to fight off bad guys were fun to see. But being a Disney movie, you got to understand that such fight would not be the violent type and more family friendly. And the movie did have a nice ending with one particular touching moment that affected my wife.
The special effects and visual effects of this movie were totally awesome. The realms seemed lifelike and I totally loved the scenes involving the flying owl (especially the opening scene). I also noticed something unusual about this movie where it did not show any opening credits at all and all those including the title was only shown during the end credit. My wife and I waited till the very end of the movie and saw some funny pictures but there was no mid or post end credit scene. It was a pity though that the lady who worked at the cinema did not appreciate us waiting, coz when we left she looked really irritated and even slammed the door behind us which I thought was really not nice. I think the cinema should train and remind their staff that audience have the right to wait till the movie completed.
Anyway, aside from the beautiful visual effects, the movie was filled with good background music most of the time. I also felt that the song playing during the end credit was nice. It was titled Fall on Me which was sung by Andrea Bocelli and his son Matteo Bocelli. As a movie aimed for general audience and families, I think it was quite nice. But I could not help feeling that this film seemed a bit flat and at certain times it felt a bit underdeveloped. Perhaps because the duration was too short (around 99 minutes including the lengthy end credits). Even the supposed main character Nutcracker was not really impressive. Although Keira Knightley was fantastic playing her character and Helen Mirren despite not having so much screen time still managed to give a nice impression.
Nevertheless, it was quite a nice experience. We got to see the wonderful realms came to life and we also could see the beautiful relationship of a girl and her family. With some nice background music and a lovely song towards the end which did keep us entertained. However, I could say that as a Disney movie, it would certainly not one of the best and those looking for a truly beautiful movie might not really get it here. Although if you still want to see Nutcracker and mice plus tin soldiers came to life, then you could probably enjoy this one.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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