THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS
(Cert PG, 99mins)
TCHAIKOVSKY’S ballet The Nutcracker meets CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe in this charming Disney fantasy.
We begin in the company of a grieving Victorian family. This is the first Christmas tomboy Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy) has spent without her mother so she is in no mood to go to the annual party thrown by her rich inventor godfather Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman).
She perks up as she learns her mother has left behind presents for her and her two siblings. Clara receives an egg-shaped music box with a note that reads: “Everything you need is inside.” The box is locked and there is no key but an inscription reveals it was made by Drosselmeyer. Suddenly, she is pestering her father (Matthew Macfadyen) to take her to the ball.
There, her godfather has hidden presents for the children. After Clara finds she has been gifted a key, she is transported to a magical world called The Realms which is peopled by human-sized living toys.
The four realms are in the grip of a civil war after Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), the ruler of the Land of Amusements, teamed up with the mysterious Mouse King.
Eugenio Derbez and Richard E Grant play Hawthorne and Shiver, the regents of the Land of Flowers and Land of Snowflakes while Keira Knightley is Land of Sweets’ ruler Sugar Plum. The costumes and fantasy worlds are stunning, the score riffs beautifully on themes from Tchaikovsky’s ballet and the action scenes are scary enough to bewitch younger children.