Christmas Favorite 'Nutcracker' Gone Horribly Wrong

[Hannah Bell]

There are bad movies and then there are spectacularly bad movies...By every conventional yardstick, "Nutcracker in 3D" is a complete and utter failure...

So what so infuriated the critics? Let's just say that anyone walking into the movie expecting to see sugarplum fairies pirouetting to Tchaikovsky were in for a grave disappointment. What they got instead was, by all accounts, an unsettling $90 million special-effects-laden mishmash of treacle and terror. There's little dancing, less Tchaikovsky and what's left has been given lyrics by Tim Rice of "Evita" fame.

The movie starts out as a gentle tale of a lonely young girl (Elle Fanning) in 1920s Vienna who receives a magical nutcracker for Christmas from her uncle Albert Einstein (Nathan Lane). Yes, that Albert Einstein. Exactly why the famed Jewish physicist was celebrating Christmas is not discussed in the film. The doll, of course, comes alive, reveals himself to be a prince under a curse, and leads her Wonderland-like into his world.

And here's where the movie makes a left turn from a Hallmark Christmas special into a bizarro version of the Third Reich. The prince's land is occupied by rat-faced Nazis. Their leader, the Rat King (John Turturro in an Andy Warhol wig), espouses the complete purification ("Ratification") of the population while throwing piles of children's toys into a crematorium. There's also singing and dancing. A little kung fu. An electrocuted shark and at least one beheading. And it's in 3D!

http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/201-christmas-favorite-nutcracker-gone-horribly-wrong

[ellie]

1. Good lord!

[Posteritatis]

2. I have no comment on it other than that I love the phrase "mismash of treacle and terror." (nt)

[TheWraith]

3. Holy shit.

That sounds... well, as a children's movie, horrible. As an exercise in how NOT to make a children's movie, kind of hilarious.

[Brickbat]

4. I have to say I went back and forth between horror and delight as I read this.

"John Turturro as the Rat King? AWESOME! Ratification? WHAT THE FUCK! Nathan Lane as Christmas Einstein? Whatever, but AWESOME! Toys in a crematorium? MAKE IT STOP!"

[Dorian Gray]

5. It's so awesomely insulting

so wonderfully awful.

[thereismore]

6. Should become a classic, like Springtime for Hitler. nt

[surrealAmerican]

7. It sounds like a movie just made for ...

... MST3K.

[JBoy]

8. Shark got electrocuted by the frickin' laser beam.

[frazzled]

9. But also a true holiday gift to critics ...

who are always eager to use their cleverest lines (a la Jon Stewart's takedown of newscasters 'punniest' moments last night). They just lust after this kind of drek!

Some gems culled from a quick search:

"Imagine watching Tchaikovsky's ballet after taking a handful of peyote - on a day when all of the dancers call in sick and the orchestra decides to play a different set of the composer's works."
-- San Francisco Chronicle | Peter Hartlaub

"Your Thanksgiving turkey has arrived on schedule and it's called The Nutcracker in 3D."
-- Los Angeles Times | Gary Goldstein

"Terry Gilliam-ish territory here, spiked with imagery from Holocaust nightmares and drug trips. Attention, university film clubs: Here's your cult-ready midnight-movie programming."
-- Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

"From what dark night of the soul emerged the wretched idea for The Nutcracker in 3D? "
-- Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert