The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (PG)
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This came out in 2018, but I didn't see it until 2022. Before I watched it, I wasn't sure if I'd put my review under "fantasy" or "holiday" or both. After watching it... at first I thought just "fantasy", but then I decided on both. It's set on Christmas Eve, but while that plays a somewhat minor role in the story, it still feels like the kind of movie that's best to watch when you're in a Christmas-y state of mind. Anyway, it's not so much a retelling of "The Nutcracker" as it is a sort of sequel to that story. Or something like that. It's actually not a great movie, but I enjoyed it. It's really hard to say how much I enjoyed it... at first I was going to rate it three smileys, then I went down to two and three quarters, then two and a half. Part of me thinks it might not deserve more than two and a quarter, but I'm in a generous mood, so I'll go with two and a half. But I'm not as generous as I could be.

Sometime in Victorian-era London, there's a girl named Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy), who has an older sister named Louise (Ellie Bamber, whom I've recently been watching in Willow, but failed to recognize here), a younger brother named Fritz, and their father, Benjamin. The children's mother, Marie, has recently died, and on Christmas Eve, Benjamin gives them each gifts Marie had left for them. Clara's is an egg-shaped box that requires a key to open. That night, they go to a Christmas party hosted by the children's godfather, Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman), who had taken Marie in as an orphan and raised her. He's an inventor, as Marie herself became, and Clara is just as mechanically inclined as her mother was. Drosselmeyer gives gifts to all of his guests, which they must find for themselves, and the search for Clara's gift leads her into a snowy forest, where she finds the key for her egg box. But before she can take it, it's snatched away by a mouse, which she starts chasing. This leads her to a bridge, where she meets a nutcracker soldier named Captain Philip Hoffman, from whom she learns that her mother was a queen, making Clara herself a princess. She's determined to catch the mouse and take back her key, and orders the captain to help her, but they fail, and in fact barely escape the mousey minions of Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), the regent of the fourth realm.

Captain Hoffman takes Clara back to Marie's palace, where she meets the regents of the other three realms, most importantly the regent of the Land of Sweets, Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley, whom I failed to recognize). Clara learns that her mother had brought all the people of the four realms to life with an invention called the Engine, which requires the same key that would open her egg. So she enlists Hoffman and a regiment of other soldiers to escort her into the fourth realm to retrieve the key, so that the engine could be used to bring more soldiers to life to defend the three realms from Mother Ginger's forces. Clara manages to obtain the key and subsequently hands it over to Sugar Plum. Then there's a plot twist I saw coming but won't spoil here. So there's not much more I can say about the story.

Well, I feel like I should say more. Not about the story, but my thoughts on it all. I thought it was... good, or at least somewhere between okay and good. The movie hasn't got a good rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I don't care, I still liked it. It was all kind of mad, in a low-key Alice in Wonderland way. Pretty simplistic, I suppose, but there was just enough enchantment to make it worthwhile. And there was a certain degree of heart, with regard to Clara's feelings about her mother's death, and needing to come to understand her father's feelings, which he wasn't very good at showing. (I mean, I think it was obvious to viewers how he felt, but it's understandable that it wasn't obvious to Clara.) And I guess that's all I can think to say.