O Quebra Nozes: A História Que Ninguém Contou

When I first heard of this film, I was both curious and overjoyed. The Nutcracker by ETA Hoffmann is one of my all-time favourite stories you see, and I am deeply in love with the ballet music by Tchaikovsky. However, when I heard there was 3D I wasn't as enthused. So what were my overall thoughts after seeing it? That of bitter disappointment, that's what.

The Nutcracker in 3D isn't without its virtues though. The film is visually spellbinding with wonderful sets and exquisite costumes particularly at the beginning and with the snow fairy. Also Elle Fanning is very good as Mary, instead of being obnoxious and annoying, she is heartfelt and believable.

However, I wasn't so taken with the effects, which brings me to a point I made earlier. I think the 3D was unnecessary to be honest. When I think of The Nutcracker, 3D is the last thing you expect. Sadly, it wasn't that good, it needed more clarity and sharpness and distracted rather than enhanced.

I also had mixed feelings on the songs. The music itself is outstanding, well it is Tchaikovsky what do you expect, with elegant and poignant melodies. The problem lay in the lyrics, even for Tim Rice they were really quite dull and insipid. The only songs that didn't leave me completely cold were My Secret World-while too short the melody based on the beautiful and nostalgic 2nd movement of the 5th symphony was amazing- and The Rat King's song which was quite wacky.

My main problems though with the film were with the story, writing and acting, also with the direction. Andrey Konchalovskiy said he had wanted to do this project for years, somehow that fact didn't come through loud and clear enough. The action is also very clumsy, and the pacing is much too rushed. Consequently the story instead of magical and charming like it promised with a touch of darkness and austerity to emphasize the reality is convoluted and messy particularly when the film's tone shifts, while the script especially with Uncle Albert and the "Nazi rats" is terrible with no sense of wonder or care.

The acting on the whole is pretty dire, which is very disappointing considering how good the cast looked on paper. Fanning of course gives a great performance, which is more than I can say for her co-stars who either give up half-way through or come across as wasted talent. Nathan Lane in particular tries hard but his spirited performance is hampered severely by the film's worst dialogue and the patchy accent. John Tuturo, with a David Bowie-like wig, fares a little better but does verge on overracting. It is not entirely his fault as the script lets him down terribly making him come across as cartoony. Likewise with Frances DeLa Tour. I liked the Snow Fairy though, she was beautiful and suitably mysterious. Shirley Henderson is okay as Nutcracker, but I didn't find Nutcracker heroic enough, and the message seemed to originate from Uncle Albert rather than Nutcracker here. Worst is the Prince, his wooden acting makes marionettes more animated. At the end of the day, I only cared character-wise for Mary.

Also, I think the film is 15 minutes too long. The Nutcracker works better in my view as a 75 minute film, because of the length there was a lot of filler that perhaps didn't need to be there. I wish to say before I am told I am being unfair that I am well aware this was an untold story. Also I didn't mind whether it was the story or not, so long as it stuck with its charm and magic. And that was my main problem with The Nutcracker in 3D, it didn't do that. I didn't think much of the title either, something like Nutcracker:The Untold Story would have been much more fitting.

Overall, in my personal opinion The Nutcracker in 3D is this year's biggest disappointment. It had all the ingredients for a worthwhile Christmas cracker, but it came across as rather charmless family fare with a convoluted story, poor acting on the whole and the unnecessary inclusion of 3D. 3/10 for the production values, Tchaikovsky's music and Elle Fanning, and I also think if Hoffmann or Tchaikovsky were alive to see this they would ask for a letter of apology. Bethany Cox

I'm sure there's been the occasional viewer that wonders why I do get so angry about movies sometimes. Well, films are something that I'm very passionate about, every movie that I've seen goes from that is praised with comments or hate with every cell of my brain.

And speaking of the literal Devil, we have ourselves "The Nutcracker in 3D"!!!

...This is the worst movie I've ever seen!!!! First of all, Anderi Konchalovsky directed this crap! He previously directed "Runaway Train" and the TV-movie "The Odyssey". I can't accept this!!! How is that possible that he went from a groundbreaking movie and a cult fantasy film to This?!?

What's the point on making a movie with Nazi Rats (They are Mice in the original story, you idiots!!!) that burn toys like how they did to the Jews?!?

OK, if Konchalovsky wanted to make a despotic movie with Nazis represented like greedy rats and other political animal-alike allusions that's OK! It's interesting! ...But leave the classic story of the Nutcracker alone!!!

It would be like... If I make a movie about the tale of Aladdin, where Aladdin is Obama, Jafar is a Bin Laden, Agrabah a New York-alike city destroyed by terrorist attacks and The Genie be an incarnation of Uncle Sam! Oh, and all this weird despotic crap pretended to be a "kids movie". No!No!No!!! That's not how it works!!! I'll describe the two scenes that mostly offended me: the Rat King, after performing a bad-choreographed musical number, kills a shark inside a tank by electrocuting it with a light!!! The second one, the Rat King suddenly rips off the head of a living Drummer Boy with bare hands and for a few seconds he plays volleyball with his Nazi-soldiers using the head of the poor guy and than replace it and act like nothing happened! You know, for KIDS!

But of course, these are the images that comes to your mind when you think of the Nutcracker! ...Nazi creatures that burn toys, kill sharks and play volleyball with the head of their victims HELLO?!?

The movie is an awful waste of money and talent(...If there was ANY!!!), and it sucks balls because for the unappealing Nazi characters, the awful 3D effect and for turning Tchaikovsky's music into horrendous songs that makes "Marry the Mole" look like Bohemian Rhapsody!!!

And I'm not the only person who thinks this "movie" in an abomination: 0% on Rotten Tomatoes! And Roger Ebert said: "The Nutcracker in 3D is one of those rare holiday movies that may send children screaming under their seats." In fact, no kid went to see this movie! The Nutcraker in 3D was a giant NUT-BOMB at the box office!!!

This movie is one of those rare movies that can insult the intelligence of Anybody. Do not watch it.

The Nutcracker by Pyotr Tchaikovsky is arguably the most famous and cherished ballet ever created and there have been countless adaptations of it. And "Nutcracker 3D" is probably the worst one of all.

First off, I did some research on the original ballet from 1892, and there's a limited amount of material from it to make a movie to begin with. As a result, expanding on the story is required to create a proper Nutcracker film. But even so, Tchaikovsky's work is eviscerated here. The film bears little resemblance to the Nutcracker story. Elle Fanning plays a Clara stand-in named Mary. Uncle Drosselmeyer is replaced by Albert Einstein (Nathan Lane) for some reason. The story takes place in early 20th century Austria instead of the correct 19th century Germany, but even then, nobody speaks with an Austrian accent. And, finally, the Nutcrackers world is turned into a steampunk styled kingdom. It's all so different, you'd be forgiven for initially thinking this isn't even a Nutcracker adaptation.

No question, the main reason this film was so panned was because it was essentially an allegory to the Holocaust by portraying the rats as Nazis and showing them systematically exterminating living toys by burning them in factories or in public to block out the sun and publish and spread propaganda about a RATification policy. This portrayal of the rats was unnecessarily morbid and in very poor taste. I'm all for teaching kids about the Holocaust, but this just made the film too dark and disturbing for such an audience.

Nazi imagery aside, this film was chock full of disturbing scenes that would terrify children. The poorly rendered CGI model of the Nutcracker himself looked very creepy with his bulging, lifeless eyes and flapping head, and the Rat King's face morphing and showing his prominent teeth and gums was the stuff of nightmares. And that's not all; we see a Shark being electrocuted to death in a big fish tank, the Rat King decorating his fortress with photographs of sobbing children, and Sticks (Africa Nile), the drummer boy, gets his head ripped off so the Rat King and his soldiers can play catch with it! What was Konchalovsky thinking?!

The acting and dialogue were poor for the most part and few of the characters were likeable. I know she was very young at the time, but Elle Fanning tended to speak in a bored sounding monotone, Max (Aaron Michael Drozin) was an irritating brat who liked to break toys, and Shirley Henderson performed the Nutcracker with an annoying high-pitched voice and tended to be rude and dismissive toward Mary. Nathan Lane's fake German accent fools nobody. Only John Turturro was fun to watch with his wacky villain performance, even though he's playing an Adolf Hitler/Andy Warhol hybrid dictator.

But worst of all, the Nutcrackers prolific songs that everyone knows and loves, like the "Nutcracker Suite", "Sugarplum Fairy", and "Waltz of the Flowers" are all butchered with the addition of God-awful lyrics from Tim Rice and bad singing. There wasn't even any ballet dancing. It's all so distorted and jarring, it feels like a slap in the face to fans of the original work.

Visually, though, the magical world that Mary dreams up actually looks pretty good. From the buildings and city streets of the Nutcrackers kingdom to the interior and exterior of the Rat Kings steampunk castle everything looked impressive. The costumes looked nice too, if you don't count the rats Nazi uniforms. The steampunk technology, like the helicopter, robotic dogs, and motorcycles were cool, even if they felt out of place in a Nutcracker film. They really could have created something better than this if they'd left the darkest elements out.

Overall, I was surprised and disappointed that Andrei Konchalovsky was behind this, seeing as how he won a Primetime Emmy for creating "The Odyssey" miniseries back in 1997, which I enjoyed. Plus, with a $90 million budget to work with, he could have done better if he'd been more faithful to the ballets source material, had a lighter and more kid friendly story, and steer clear of any Nazi imagery. But the saddest part of all is that for twenty years this was his dream project, but how he thought mixing it with the Holocaust was a good idea is beyond me, because he wound up creating not only the worst Nutcracker adaptation of all time, but also one of the worst Christmas films ever.

This film has received some negative reviews but in comparison with many of the Christmas offerings which offer schmaltzy sentimental rubbish this has some drama and tight spots and you are drawn into the action. The nut cracker when returned to life lacks charisma which the toy seems to have through only the voice. The contrast between Mary and her brother Max is nicely realised.

Of course there is a sense of history and some scenes are reminiscent of the book burning under the Nazis and the dating of the plot as the 1920 can tend to emphasis this.

The special effects are good and the rat faces well made

I don't usually do this. I don't really care enough to post on here, but for this travesty of a movie I had to register. This film has: horrible acting, horrible plot, horrible script, rotten to the bone.

I have no idea for whom this movie was made, in appropriate for children boring and immature for adults. The only saving grace is that they spent 90 million on it and only got back a few grand. Anyone associated with this piece of crap should be ashamed of themselves.

PS: I'm willing to bet money that anyone giving this a positive review is either associated with the film and has no soul, or has recently been the victim of a horrible TBI.