The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

Disney's pretty-looking The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is immediately forgettable. The disparate elements of the story barely fit together.

Younger audiences will enjoy the bright colours and fun energy but it's unlikely to leave a lasting impression. Sometimes, that's enough. But don't expect it to become an instant favourite.

At times it has the feel of a computer game: cross the bridge, open the gates, jump off the wall, beat the boss. Only characters in computer games tend to be more unpredictable, with more than one twist.

Bits of it are kind of like... Harry Potter does the Nutcracker... or what would it be like if we did Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe meets Tchaikovsky.

But like A Wrinkle in Time, Nutcracker and the Four Realms is an expensive but clunky fantasy, mashing together mythical elements but mostly hitting discordant notes.

The bones of ETA Hoffmann's original story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, have been stripped down and reshaped, with grim efficiency, to fit the template of the Disney princess narrative.

A film that keeps throwing production design at you to obscure the fact that nearly everything else is a bit of a mess.

A 99-minute mess of stilted dialogue, wooden performances, and predictable themes.

It's a little light on the story, and it's kind of predictable.

The final product is soulless, sickeningly sweet, plastic, and static, operating on a dearth of originality to stretch itself over just 90 minutes.