The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

“This time has been difficult for all of us, but when Christmas comes, we must do our best to enjoy it.”

Filmology Rating: 2 out of 4

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is another one of these terrible Disney Live Action nostalgia remakes that will never die and stars Mackenzie Foy (Clara), Kiera Knightley (Sugarplum), and Morgan Freeman (3 and 1/2 minutes of screen time). This film centers around Clara, a rich girl who I'm sure everyone can relate to, who is transported to another realm through a wardrobe and meets a Lion named Aslan and learns that she is destined for royalty and that Narnia is at war with an evil witch lady. She must read the end of the script to figure out how to end the film. And there's a nutcracker in it, I guess.

I want to address Disney and their constant need to shove nostalgic live action films down our throats. If you take out all of Disney's main sources of income (Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar) most of their films flop horribly, financially and critically. This film will do the same.
I will say, this is a competent film. It makes sense and there is story that flows. BUT, this is one of those films that follows the most clique formula to date as of right now: "You are different and you're the chosen one to save our kingdom from the evil lady. You must overcome your self doubt and believe in yourself to rally the kingdom to stop the bad people." I am absolutely sick and tired of that formula. I'm so happy that The Last Jedi said, no Rey is not special. And It's like, Great! But then a film like this comes along and it feels like an assembly line-made Disney film. It's so paint by the numbers.

This film deals in broad, broad strokes. In a good movie, it's those little moments that make a movie great. But this movie felt so robotic. There is bad acting, over acting, bad makeup, bad costume design and flat direction.

One thing I really wanted to say about this film is that I absolutely hate the aesthetic look of "this type of movie." And it all started with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. And I hate the look of it. It's so cartoony and ugly. It looks like a high school stage production and it's so lazy and uninteresting to look at. This film also looks incredibly fake. You can tell it was all shot on a sound stage with a ton of terrible looking green screen.

This is probably the most cringe inducing film I've seen in a while. Every scene was a face palm because I felt like I had to close off my senses because of how dumb the movie was. The whole time I was watching the movie, I was like, "What is this?" Like did the director of this film lose a bet? What happened? This concept just seems so dated. It's like a movie from the early 2000s. There is also an apparent lack of effort behind and in front of the camera. Morgan Freeman is in two scenes. One of them he's sitting down and it looks like he just wants to go back to his trailer. Keira Knightley was so annoying and over-the-top that I considered leaving. Sure this may be a children's film, but there shouldn't be a sexual innuendo where Keira Knightley moans and says "Oh I love a man in uniform." It's so weird. I said "What?" maybe 20 times. There are decisions in the film that I assume a director made and you ask "why?" Joe Johnston, oh how you've fallen so far.

There is also a nutcracker in the film, I guess, who has just as much screen time as Poe does in The Force Awakens. It's called "The Nutcracker"... Overall, this film was horribly generic and clique to the point of utter annoyance.

Rating: Let It Burn

-Nolan