The Nutcracker and the Four Realms reviews: What do critics say about the Disney movie?

The plot of the Nutcracker and the Four Realms follows Clara (Mackenzie Foy) who receives a golden thread from her godfather Drosselmeyer.

The thread leads her to a coveted key, to open a secret box from her late mother, which promptly disappears into a strange and mysterious parallel world.

It’s there that Clara encounters a soldier named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), a gang of mice and the regents who preside over three Realms: Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets.

Clara and Phillip must brave the ominous Fourth Realm, home to the tyrant Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), to retrieve Clara’s key and hopefully return harmony to the unstable world.

Here’s what critics are saying about The Nutcracker and the Four Realms:

As of writing, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Rotten Tomatoes score is 34 percent, indicating mixed-negative reviews.

Giving it a D+ for IndieWire, David Ehrlich wrote: “The compromised result is suspended between a childlike sense of discovery and a corporate sense of duty – at no point does it feel like the story and the graphics are talking to each other, or even in the same language.”

Emily Yoshida from Vulture was equally disappointed.

She wrote: “There’s nothing grounding enough here; everything – the sets, the costumes, the performances – seems to drift off in a CGI haze.”

On a more positive note, Aisha Harris for the New Your Times wrote: “Ultimately, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a family holiday movie that will do well enough for now; it probably won’t linger in your memory long enough to make it until the next inevitable adaptation comes around.”

For Variety Peter Debruge wrote: “If only all that creativity might have served a simpler, more elegant narrative, as opposed to a meaningless war movie in which neither side represents any recognizable cause.”

Giving it a dismal score of 1.5 out of four was Katie Walsh of Tribune News Service.

Walsh wrote: “What in the cuckoo Christmas blasphemy is this?”

AV Club’s Katie Rife was also displeased.

She wrote: “Watching Copeland pirouette across the screen, you rather wish you were just watching her perform a filmed version of the ballet.”

The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney wrote: “The story remains stubbornly lacking in excitement or enchantment; it’s more assaultive, to the point of becoming dull.”

Even the reviewer from Movies4Kids, where The Nutcracker and the Four Realms might be better accepted, was poorly received.

For Movies4Kids Jo Berry wrote: “While it looks impressive it lacks the charm, warmth and magic you’d expect from the story of a whimsical land populated by the Mouse King and the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

Someone more entertained by the movie was The Sun’s Grant Rollings.

Rollings wrote: “A sumptuous, seasonal delight.”

For those with children, it may still be worth heading to the cinema.

But if you’re looking for a classic Christmas story, you may be better served heading to the ballet.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is out in cinemas today, November 2, 2018.