“On Christmas Eve, Marie makes a wish to become little and carefree again as in childhood. Miraculously, her wish comes true, and her cchildhood toys all come to life. The unattractive Nutcracker transforms into brave prince George,who has been put under a spell cast by a sinister queen of rats. Marie, George, and their toy friends travel to the magical Land of Flowers with a mission to save the world from control of the rat people”.
– DVD description
Some thoughts from me (Potential spoilers below…)
It’s been a while since I added a new Nutcracker movie to my collection! I feel like I’ve mentioned this before, but in the venn diagram of “Christmas movies” and “Movies with Princesses”, the overlap is predominantly filled with Nutcracker adaptations (That and live action Hallmark movies about down-to-earth women meeting and falling in love with Prince’s that may or may not be disguising themselves as normal dudes).
This film was brought to us by the same production company behind My Sweet Monster and has a lot of the same problems. The biggest of which is that there’s potential in this story, but it was taken out of the oven before it got a chance to cook all the way through. So you end up with strange story choices, multiple characters suddenly swapping personalities halfway though the film, bad dialogue, etc. I will say that the voice acting is an improvement over My Sweet Monster, it’s still not stellar but at least everyone is on the same level of quality. And to be fair I think a lot of the odd line delivery can be chalked up to the writing, there’s only so much you can do with an awkwardly written line (especially since this film has been dubbed with English voice actors who were probably trying to match lip movements as best they could).
I think my biggest grievance with this film is the main character, Marie. This is a more action-oriented take on the Nutcracker story, and Marie feels pretty out of place. She’s a dancer, not a fighter, so in a lot of the action scenes she ends up standing by the side lines while other characters solve the problem. The few times that characters (rightfully) ask her to stay behind for her own safety she ignores them, and usually immediately ends up needing rescue right after.
Adding to that… Marie just doesn’t grab your attention. The film doesn’t really centre around her, despite it supposedly being her story. Things kick off with Marie and her Mom forced to give up their home to pay debts incurred by Marie’s late Father. The alternative is that the debtor is willing to forgive said debt… if Marie marries him. Marie’s Mom is adamant that her daughter will not be forced into marriage, but Marie starts contemplating if she should just marry herself off to prevent losing her childhood home. Marie ends up singing a song about how she longs for the simple days of childhood where she didn’t have to make these hard decisions… and some unexplained Christmas magic brings all her toys to life, including her new Nutcracker! And of course, Nutcracker is not just an ordinary Nutcracker… you all probably know the drill by now.
You might think that surely the film is going to focus on Marie, maybe her adventure fighting the rats will reflect the turmoil she’s facing at home and the events of the film will give Marie ideas on how to tackle her problems. Like, maybe at one point the Rat Queen tries to force Marie into marrying her son, and Marie realises that no matter the alternative, she can’t bring herself to marry someone she doesn’t love? Y’know, bring some of that early set-up into the main adventure of the film?
Instead, once the plot starts gaining traction majority of the focus is on the Nutcracker character. This film firmly becomes his story, and Marie kinda becomes a side character in that. Her problems still end up getting resolved by the end in the usual Nutcracker fashion, where the human Nutcracker arrives at the very end of the film (And in this instance, pays off the family debt). But because the focus shifts to the Nutcracker you kinda forget that… right, this is supposed to be about Marie. There’s even an awkward moment towards the end of the movie where they have to shoehorn Marie talking about marrying the debtor to the Nutcracker, almost like they realised Nutcracker would have no idea that Marie was in trouble because she never brought it up to him before that point.
I could go on, but this post feels as long as it is. I’d definitely recommend picking this up for a movie night, the plot is straightforward enough that everyone is able to follow along, yet there’s enough weird choices along the way to keep folks entertained. If you’re like me, and have subjected your friends to multiple adaptations of the Nutcracker story, this one breaks the mold enough that your friends don’t have to worry about watching the same story for the umpteenth time.
Bad Princess Movies 
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