The Nutcracker in 3D/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Accidental Innuendo: Close your eyes and the Rat King's torture of NC sounds like the most wrong thing ever. "Open your mouth…like a good little prince!" Ditto for Frau Eva saying to Mary: "Get changed, something nice...I'll help you."
  • Ass Pull: Mary tells Frau Eva the noise in her bedroom was her pillows combusting (and not NC coming to life). Also done a little too literally when the Rat King expounds on the joys of his evil empire ("An empire that will last...(pulling number out of ass) a THOOOOOUSAND YEARS!").
  • Ham and Cheese: John Turturro's performance as the Rat King, when he isn't frightening children. He owns it, reaching "delicious" M. Bison levels.
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The Rat King's morphed "scary" face with huge teeth; the Smoke Factory, the Rats invading; Sticks getting his head ripped off.
  • Narm: So much, but the most glaring examples are probably Uncle Albert's "Hardest thing to understand is income tax...this is a PIECE OF SHTRUDEL!" and his song about the magic pebble.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Most kids would probably not want to play with a life-sized clown doll that looks like an obese middle-aged man. Or a creepily realistic chimp in a suit.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: "I better go to the Little Girl's Room!" Um, what, Mom? Ditto the painful "distraction" musical number.
  • So Bad It's Good: Get the right group of friends to riff it with, don't fear the nut-related jokes, and this flick is more fun than spiked eggnog.
  • Special Effect Failure: The CGI (especially during the snowflake dance) and the costumes of the Christmas ornaments look extremely shoddy. You can also clearly see John Turturro's stunt double doing the flip off the table in his first song; and the pirouette, followed by a bit of more complex footwork, in the second.
  • Squick: Mary and NC's weird flirting. The Rat King seems to flirt with her a bit too ("I hope you’re saving the last dance for me") and so does Gielgud the chimp. Also squicky is the rambling reminiscence Frau Eva relates to Mary, about youthful indiscretion and spontaneous combustion.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: The aforementioned crowd song.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot
  • This Is Your Premise on Drugs: The Nutcracker Ballet on LSD, designed as a punishment for children.
  • Toy Ship: Literally and figuratively with Mary and NC/The Prince.
  • Unfortunate Implications: The Rat King luring Max to the Dark Side with promises of a Rat motorbike and toys…the way child predators do with their victims. Not to mention Mary's tendency to be in ripped clothing...and a see-through nightgown, which was pointed out in several reviews.
  • What Do You Mean It's for Kids?
  • What the Hell, Casting Agency?: In a work based on a ballet, the actor who dances the most would be...John Turturro? He had a double for some harder moves, but what he did do was much more, and of a much better quality, than you'd expect.
  • WTH Costuming Department: The fairy's tinfoil dress; Tinker's disturbing resemblance to serial killer John Wayne Gacy; Mary's easily-ripped and see-through clothes; the Rat King's resemblance to Andy Warhol; the Rat Queen's weird wigs.
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