Casse-Noisette: l'histoire jamais racontée

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

Even the kids hated it. At end daughter asked if we could put it in the rubbish. I wanted to stop watching by halfway.

Holocaust themes, dark and violent for younger children, and lots of rat teeth.

To be fair, make-up and costumes were alright plus Elle Fanning is gorgeous and a talented actress but even as the main redeeming feature she was unable to support this holocaust-themed bastardisation of a ballet. Tim Rice may be good at lyrics but the breaks into song were un-natural and whole thing forced, boring and dreary. Composers would be turning in their graves. I truly hope I never watch this again!

I saw this movie with my wife and daughter (7) in America recently, we are from Ireland. We were excited to go and see it as it is the only story written in which my daughter name is used. Unfortunately we were very disappointed when we realized the main characters name was changed to Mary. In the original story and ballet the little girl's name is 'Clara', in future productions please pay attention to the small details. As for the movie it was entertaining the story follows the ballet version to a point but is let down by the lack of music. The main focus seemed to be placed on the special effects in which the Nut Cracker and Clara are transported to the princes world, The Rat King played by John Turturro was well done he is a very fine actor. The make-up on the rats and the rat king was more akin to 'The Grinch' movie starring Jim Carrey than something more original. What was good was the color used, the sets and the overall production it had the Christmas feel to some degree. The movie unfortunately is let down by the lack of music, the acting and particularly the connection between Clara and the Nut Cracker. Overall this movie is not great.

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

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.