I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas, especially Christmas movies. Sure “Elf” is a classic and “The Polar Express” brings nostalgia, but I see these films every year and it just gets boring. There’s so much “Home Alone” I can take and don’t even get me started on “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. When Disney announced that a Christmas movie surrounding the idea and ballet of “The Nutcracker”, I was excited about a new movie within this holiday was being released. I thought the movie would be a new holiday favorite movie to look forward to every year and I was extremely disappointed. After avoiding spoilers for roughly two years and anxiously waiting for the movie to arrive on cable TV, I was finally able to watch the movie in the comfort of my living room this past Friday night.

On October 28th, 2018, “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” was released in the theaters. The film stars Mackenzie Foy as Princess Clara, Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Jayden Fowora-Knight as Captain Philip Hoffman. The film stars other British actors and actresses I have never heard nor seen any other films with them in it. I only knew Mackenzie Foy, who played the creepy CGI vampire child from “Twilight”, and Morgan Freeman, who plays Princess Clara’s godfather, Drosselmeyer. The film is directed by Lasse Hallstrom and Joe Johnston. Hallstrom is known as a Swedish director and Johnston worked on American movies such as “Jumanji” and “Captain America: The First Avenger” (mainly on visual effects).

With these two directors with creative talents in directing and this pretty supportive cast, I expected the movie to be a wonderfully made fantasy movie and I didn’t get that at all. What I got was a beautiful movie with plot holes, overused cliches, and two dimensional characters that had no personalities whatsoever.

The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Disney’s “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms”.

The opening shot of the movie was so terribly filmed and edited I thought I recorded the wrong movie. Literally, the opening show is a tour of a VERY CGI version of London as we follow an owl through the city. I thought I was either watching a rip off version of “Harry Potter” or the opening to “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” (which was another awful movie).

After the whole CGI sequence, we meet our main character Clara who is the heroine of our story. She is accompanied by her brother, Friz, in the attic. She’s explaining physics to him and how this mechanical trap they created will catch a mouse who is roaming around in the attic. Throughout the film, we see many moments of Clara using math or physics to solve problems happening in the plot. I understand it was trying to show that girls can do math like boys too since society is trying to empower women but this was extremely unnecessary. This is a Christmas movie. I don’t care for physics or math, I’m here for the fantasy and action in this other world Clara explores. Even though Clara’s intelligence does help her often, it just feels very forced and unnecessary.

One of the key pieces to the plot surrounds the idea of Clara’s mother, Marie, and her death. Clara and her father are not in a good place. They are both dealing with the death of Marie in different ways and it causes a rift between the two. Honestly, the relationship between Clara and her father and the problems they have does not affect the plot at all. The two have a fight at the beginning of the movie and the end of the film, Clara apologizes to him and they go on with their lives. There’s no satisfying resolution between the two and it’s just weird. I suppose this relationship between the two is established to show how they are both dealing with the death of Marie and that Marie’s death is what keeps Clara going in the climax. However, the father’s feelings regarding Marie’s death has no significance on the plot whatsoever so why have it? What is the importance of this? To show grief in the family even though it has no importance in the main storyline?

Along with Marie’s death, she leaves her children three gifts: a dress for Clara’s sister, wooden soldiers for Friz, and a metal egg for Clara. Clara finds a letter stating “Everything you need is inside” in the metal egg though it is locked. Without a key, Clara is forced to ask her godfather, Drosselmeyer, to open the egg at the Christmas Eve party. Now, the whole thing with the godfather is weird too. Drosselmeyer tells Clara he gave the box to her mother when she had lived with him when she was younger. He states he can help her open it and tells her to go back to the party. When Clara leaves the room, Drosselmeyer tells his pet owl from the beginning of the film that the journey she’ll go on is a dangerous one but is what her dead mother wanted. He then tells the owl to protect her even though the owl is only seen two times in the other world and does nothing to protect Clara even in moments of danger. And what does Drosselmeyer know about the other world? This is never explained. He knows about the other world and that Marie was the Queen of it. Like, couldn’t he have been a help with Clara and her journey in the other world? Why does he send Clara there anyway? What does he know of this world? Why does he know this world? The effects on the other world have no effects on the real world.

Anyway, Clara enters this dazzling new world after her godfather leads her there to retrieve the key for the metal egg. This new world reminds me very much of the lands of “Narnia”, “Wonderland”, and a smaller version of Moscow. And let me tell you, it is beautiful. The rest of the setting, costume, dances, props, and acting shown in this new world is absolutely incredible. The setting is beyond incredible and though it reminds me of different famous lands, it’s still an amazing setting and background the story takes place in. The costumes are to die for. From the ballroom dresses to the soldiers’ uniforms, you have to hope the costume designer was paid enough. There is only one dance sequence when telling the story of “The Nutcracker” and it is actually pretty good. Though it is a very short version of the actual ballet, it’s done well and the dancers are clearly putting their all in the performance. The acting was excellent as well. The actors and actresses clearly wanted to be in this film and it definitely showed . . . if only the characters were better developed.

The first ten minutes are spent in the real world and the rest is spent in the other world. Now, with all the positives I’ve stated above, you must be wondering why I really disliked this movie and I have an answer: plot. You can create a story with characters, a setting, and a problem but the plot is what brings everything together. It’s the frosting you use when making a gingerbread house. The Christmas ornaments you put on a Christmas tree. This movie has the worst and most cliche plot I’ve ever watched before in my life.

The other world is split into four realms: the Land of Snowflakes, the Land of Flowers, the Land of Sweets, and the Land of Amusements. The regents are ruled by Sugar Plum, Shiver, and Hawthrone. The Land of Amusements is ruled by Mother Ginger who is apparently evil. Sugar Plum explains to Clara that Mother Ginger wanted to take control of the four realms and destroy everything. Sugar Plum and Clara bond over the death of Maria and they become friends. I immediately knew Sugar Plum was the villain after she helps Clara pick out clothes and does her hairstyle during one scene. It falls into the cliche of “I-am-the-good-guy-wait-no-I-am-actually-the-villain-and-I-tricked-you (evil laugh)”. The other two regents, Shiver and Hawthrone, are literally the most pointless and useless characters ever. They have a total of two lines each and have no importance to the story whatsoever.

After a mini battle sequence that made me want to rip out my eyes, Mother Ginger is revealed to be a good guy and does nothing. She has no personality or wants in the story, just like Shiver and Hawthrone. She just talks to Clara and wants to help her because Clara will save them all, blah, blah, blah. It’s stupid. I also noticed a lot of the characters are two dimensional. The only characters that really speak or have any sort of personality are Clara, Sugar Plum, and Captain Philip Hoffman, who is the last nutcracker in this world. The character of Captain was really bad. He’s supposed to be Clara’s friend but the friendship is so forced and awkward it doesn’t work. Captain probably says a total of forty lines and I honestly forgot about him for a good thirty minutes. He’s not memorable and neither are the other characters shown.

With Sugar Plum revealed as the true villain, of course, she reveals her plan to Clara. Apparently, Maria, Clara’s mother, created this world with a machine that brought everyone to life. With the key that can unlock Clara’s metal egg and start up the machine, Sugar Plum states she’s going to create a wooden soldier army and take over the four realms. Clara, with her skills in math and physics, comes up with a plan to shut down the machine. Clara, Captain, and Mother Ginger defeat Sugar Plum and the soldiers very well and the story ends. Clara is labeled the new Queen of the world and she goes home, promising to visit again.

Clara goes back to the real world and dances with her father. That’s it. That’s the ending. Clara dancing with her father. I can not fathom how Disney thought this was a good idea. The plot was horrendous. It’s action scenes were bland and stupid. The characters were stupid. “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” had so much potential, it’s really sad how bad this movie turned out to be.

This story was honestly a whirlwind of what and why all scrunched into a hundred-minute movie. There were so many plotholes, pointless characters, and such a cliche plot structure it actually made me really sad. I was so excited about this movie and what I got was a beautifully dressed rotten apple.