Review:
I’d give this movie an 8/10. Easy and simple storyline to follow, but it was still enjoyable. The animation isn’t the best, however for it being made in 2001 it still holds up. Since this was The Nutcracker of course it had a lot of ballet. The choreography for the movie was really well done and if you enjoy dancing you’ll probably appreciate that they had a choreographer choreograph each dance. The movie is quite fast pace and the plot isn’t drawn out. A lot of this movie's run time is dedicated to dancing which I enjoyed, but if you don’t care much for it you can speed past those parts and still enjoy the movie. The best part about the movie is that it’s light hearted and fun. Sometimes we need movies that don’t try to make the watcher think or have some deeper hidden with in. Sometimes it’s nice to curl up and watch a simple movie and just enjoy it and not have to think about it critically. If a movie can keep it’s audience entertained and just be a good time I’d say it’s done its job.
Overview:
The movie starts off in a dance room with Barbie teaching a young girl, Kelly, steps to a ballet routine. Kelly becomes discouraged and Barbie begins to tell her the story of Clara from the ballet The Nutcracker. It starts off one Christmas day Clara’s grandfather is having guest over. One of those guests is Clara’s aunt, Drosselmeyer. Her aunt gives her a nutcracker as a present. Later on Clara falls asleep on the couch with The Nutcracker. She wakes up to her nutcracker fighting soldier mice. Soon the Mouse King comes out and when Clara goes to help The Nutcracker the Mouse King shrinks her down to his size. Eventually Clara defeats the Mouse King by flinging her shoe at him and knocking him out. The Nutcracker explains to Clara that the Sugar Plum Princess is the only one who can turn her back to normal and he has been searching for her because the Mouse King turned him into a nutcracker. The owl that sits on the grandfather clock explains they will find the Sugar Plum Princess on an island across the sea of storms. Clara and The Nutcracker head off into a portal to find the Sugar Plum Princess.
The Nutcracker and Clara defeat the Mouse King. When Clara kisses The Nutcracker on the cheek she reverses the spell and The Nutcracker turns back into Prince Eric. Clara is then revealed to be the Sugar Plum Princess. The Mouse King in one last attempt to ruin the happy ending swoops in on a bat and steals Clara’s locket and opens it. His bat is struck down by a snowball thrown by one of the children and he falls. By him opening the locket it sends Clara back home. She wakes back on the couch her normal size. She tries to explain what happened to her grandfather and younger brother when her aunt walks in with prince Eric. Her and Eric share a dance before we are back to Barbie and Kelly. Kelly has the motivation to finish learning the dance and completes it flawlessly.
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