Review of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) by Wayne K — 05 Nov 2018

As eye-popping beautiful as it is narratively incoherent and emotionally deficient, The Nutcracker And The Four Realms certainly has a lot of visual panache, but in every other areas its sadly lacking.

It's one of the biggest wastes of talent a Hollywood budget has ever funded, with big names like Morgan Freeman, Hellen Mirren, Keira Knightly and Richard E. Grant given material not worth even 10% of their talent.

In fact, the latter spends most of his limited time on screen with his face almost completely obscured, almost as if he didn't want anyone to know who he was. Can't blame him to be honest. The story itself is a collection of poorly explained conflicts, peppered with worn-out life lessons and moments of laugh-free comedy.

Jack Whitehall and Omid Djalili turn in performances so forced and unfunny that they look like they're being held at gunpoint, and none of the characters come close to being 3 dimensional. The hammy writing is exacerbated by the stilted, awkward deliveries, and while the dance sequences are lovely to look at, they don't play enough of a part in the proceedings.

I wasn't ever bored while watching it, but I was never more than mildly entertained. It needed a fresher script, better direction and a much more organised story before even being considered for the big screen.