Just last week, Disney came out with their new holiday movie, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. The trailers on Youtube and commercials on almost every single tv channel advertising this new film intrigued me enough to go and see it. This version of The Nutcracker definitely strays from the original tale.

The movie starts in Clara’s home on Christmas Eve. Clara, her father, and her siblings, Louise and Fritiz, are decorating their Christmas tree; however, this year was far different than the past Christmases since this is the first Christmas without their mother in the world. To keep tradition, Clara’s family will be attending the Christmas Eve party at Clara’s godfather Drosselmeyer’s house. But before they went to the party, Clara’s father gave each of the children one gift for their late mother. Louise got one of her mother’s old gowns, Fritz got a set of soldiers, while Clara got something extremely out of the ordinary. Clara received a golden egg with a keyhole in it. In a quest to find the key to it, she ended up going into the four realms that were all created by her mother. When Clara meets the rulers of the three realms, she learns from the Sugar Plum Fairy, the ruler of the Realm of Sweets, that the ruler of the other realm, Mother Ginger, is evil. When Clara finds the key and gives it to the Sugar Plum Fairy, this is when it differs from the original story, the Sugar Plum Fairy then turns evil tries to take over all of the realms. However, in the end, Clara and Mother Ginger puts the Sugar Plum Fairy in her place, and the Nutcracker brings her home.

There were most certainly some pros about this movie. All throughout it, there were beautiful animations. It definitely was everything and more I have imagined for this movie. Along with the beautiful visuals, there was an amazing score with it. After watching that movie, I am definitely going to download the soundtrack on my phone. Not to mention in the film, there were many ballet scenes worked into the movie during the holiday party scenes and even in the four realms.

With all the good things mentioned, there were also some cons about the film. This movie, being from Disney, was definitely aimed for a younger viewers which can lead older viewers to feel unsatisfied with the ending. When the Nutcracker was walking Clara back to her world, they just kind of left. There wasn’t even a hug goodbye, which made me a little sad.

All and all, I definitely recommend this movie for this holiday season for its feel good message about family.