Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

It’s Christmas time! 🙂 I hoped to do a series of ‘Doctor Who’-themed Christmas reviews on my blog. Hopefully, I’ll get to do at least one ‘Doctor Who’ Christmas review soon, though the 60th anniversary celebrations have taken a lot of my time. Still, I can still do non-‘Doctor Who’ Christmas reviews on my blog.

Today, I’m sharing a quick review on ‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’, a 2018 film that I saw on Disney+ recently. The film itself is based on E. T. A. Hoffman’s 1816 short story ‘The Nutcracker and the Mouse King’ and the 1892 ballet ‘The Nutcracker’ by Marius Petipa and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

I must admit, I’m not very familiar with ‘The Nutcracker’. I’ve seen a few ballet productions years ago, but I vaguely remember them. I’ve reviewed ‘Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker’s Tale’ on my blog, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. Thus, it was refreshing to check out this version of the story. 🙂

‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ is a retelling of ‘The Nutcracker’ story and it’s about a young girl who is given a locked egg as a gift from her deceased mother. She sets out in a magical land to retrieve the key, and discovers her mother was once the ruler of the kingdom and she’s the princess.

The directors of this film are Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston. I’ve come across Joe Johnston before as a film director, as he directed ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’. He’s also directed ‘Honey, I Shrunk The Kids’, ‘The Rocketeer’, ‘Jumanji’, ‘Jurassic Park III’ and ‘Hidalgo’. It’s quite astonishing. 🙂

Apparently, this film went through several reshoots and Joe Johnston oversaw the film’s post-production. He received a co-director credit alongside Lasse Hallström. It’s also interesting that this film wasn’t well-received by critics and got negative reviews. Personally, I enjoyed watching this film.

Due to being not so familiar with ‘The Nutcracker’ story, it was fascinating to see how this 2018 film depicted it, especially with the young heroine played by Mackenzie Foy. I was able to pick up on some familiar pieces of music played in the film’s score, being composed by James Newton Howard.

Mackenzie Foy stars as Clara Stahlbaum, the young girl who travels into the Four Realms to search for the key of the gift given to her by her late mother. Mackenzie Foy went on to star in the 2020 film adaptation of ‘Black Beauty’. I enjoyed her performance as Clara in this very entertaining film. 🙂

Incidentally, Clara’s late mother Marie appears in a flashback scene, and she’s played by Anna Madeley, who would go on to play Mrs. Hall in the Channel 5 TV series ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. It was extraordinary to see Anna Madeley in this film, and before she did new ‘All Creatures’.

There’s also Kiera Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy, the regent of the Land of Sweets in the film. I didn’t realise it was Kiera Knightley, especially as she put on a high-pitched voice when playing her character. It was also quite a surprise when the Sugar Plum Fairy turned out to be the film’s villain. 🙂

Jayden Fowora-Knight stars as Captain Philip Hoffman, a nutcracker who helps Clara. There’s Helen Mirren as Mother Ginger; Morgan Freeman as Drosselmeyer, Clara’s godfather; Eugenio Derbez as Hawthorne of the Land of Flowers, and there’s Richard E. Grant as Shiver of the Land of Snowflakes.

Misty Copeland stars as the Ballerina Princess in the film. There’s also Matthew Macfayden as Benjamin Stahlbaum, Clara’s father in the film. I’m surprised Matthew Macfayden and Kiera Knightley didn’t have a scene together, since they were both in the 2005 ‘Pride & Prejudice’ film. 🙂

There’s Sergei Polunin as the Sweets Cavalier; Ellie Bamber as Louise, Clara’s sister; Tom Sweet as Fritz, Clara’s brother; Jack Whitehall as Harlequin; Omid Djalili as Cavalier; Meera Syal as the Stahlbaums’ cook; Charles ‘Lil Buck’ Riley as the Mouse King and Gustavo Dudamel as the Conductor.

There are quite a lot of recognisable names featured in the film’s cast, which does make ‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ an enjoyable Christmas film for me. I’m glad I’ve seen this film on Disney+ and it helps me to feel Christmassy. I’m looking forward to watching more Christmas films this year. 🙂

Thanks for reading.

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂