Mother Ginger wants to rule the realms! (The Nutcracker and the Four Realms 2018)

 

 

 

222.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

 

 

5/10

I'm not one for Christmas and if I'm going to be honest, I close to hate it. The moment I know I have to watch a Christmas, it doesn't exactly fill me with excitement. Disney has decided to bundle together Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman, who are the most recognisable, to tell the story of this famous ballet and movie which already has a number of 'cracks' at the big screen. The trailer did hardly anything for me, although the CGI and animation did look pretty fun but I think this could be mostly based at the young female market. Let's find out whether this will drive me nuts of crack me up.
The story is going to follow on a young lady named Clara, who on Christmas eve received a gift from her father as per her dying mother's wish. This gift is pure crap a sit's an egg-shaped box which she cannot even open. A note states that the box contains everything that she will ever need. The whole family then head off to a ball, hosted by their godfather who is played by Freeman. Clara knows he is a decent engineer, so seeks him down for help to unlock the egg. He was the one who created it, giving it to the mum, who now wants to pass this onto her daughter. Back at the ball, the Dad kicks off that Clara hasn't been social and she walks off. I can imagine that the story will end with these to reconciling. After a while and after a game in which the kids find their presents, Clara wonders off for her own, leading her into a parallel world full of excitement and Christmas.

 

 

 On a tree, she sees her key but before she can grab it, it's snatched by a mouse. Chasing it through the forest, coming up against some dangers, Clara finally finds her way to the Realms and it turns out that her mother was the Queen there. She is greeted by Sugarplum, Shiver and Hawthrone, each a regent of different areas. Sugarplum is Knightley's character and she is pretty hyper and high-pitched, probably from all that sugar. One thing I know is that she is pretty annoying.

 

 

 They all settled down to a ballet about their world's history. Clara's mom created a machine that could turn toys into real people. Sugarplum wants to use it to protect the realms against a fourth run by Mother Ginger. They are at war with her and want to protect themselves but the machine needs a key, the same key that the egg box needs. The mouse runs into the fourth realm so, off we go to visit Mother Ginger. Getting the key, all we find is a music box instead of something cool or useful inside the egg.
The story takes a turn as Sugarplum gets her hands on the key, makes an army and want to take the fight to Mother Ginger, who is revealed to be no threat at all.

 

 

 Clara, the Nutcracker and the other Regents are imprisoned and Sugarplum is ready to rule. Looking at the music box again, Clara notices that there is a mirror in the lid and looking at her reflection, she realises that her mother meant the only thing she needs is herself. With a new level of self-belief, she sets everyone their own tasks to bring down Sugarplum and triumphs as she uses the machine she longed for against her. After restoring peace, Clara promises to visit them all in the future before heading back to London. Time runs at a tiny fraction back home compared to in the realms so she is back at the party, acknowledging how hard everything has been for him and simply asks him to dance. Opening her music box, it plays the first song that her mum and dad ever danced too and the camera pans out of them dancing, finish the movie there and then.

 

First question, was there even a Nutcracker? Seriously, the introduction was ok and his character was on the screen a lot but for this movie to be called 'The Nutcracker' is far from earned. This movie really was looking toward the younger market and mainly towards the females, I would say. The little light humour that was present, didn't really take much thinking about and there was far from a lot of violence present in terms of a great war we started movie towards. The CGI was truly great and each land had it's own charm and colour but that's as far as I enjoyed personally. I'm not saying it's a terrible movie but I simply don't enjoy much along the theme of Christmas. There was a level of predictability about it and it was nice then to see the turn of Sugarplum as the villain and the villain we were looking towards turned out to help our main character. I can definitely live without seeing this movie again and Disney with their live actions right now are not filling me with a lot of joy!