The Nutcracker and the Four Realms: Far from balletic

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.2.18

This isn’t your grandfather’s Nutcracker.

Actually, I’m not sure what to call it.

Having just learned that she's princess of the magical Four Realms, Clara (Mackenzie
Foy, left) is gowned in suitable fashion by Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley), while one of
the palace soldiers guards them attentively.

This Frankenstein’s Monster is a cynical, coldly calculated commodity that lards the gentle Marius Petipa/Lev Ivanov/Tchaikovsky ballet with bits and bobs from Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and The Chronicles of Narnia, wraps the content-heavy mess with a ribbon of mild steampunk, and — for good measure — adds Harry Potter’s owl as a bow.

Only Disney could concoct such a clumsy, lumbering mess of a movie, in what appears to be a deliberate effort to enhance the corporate brand via ancillary merchandising.

Along with the opportunity to further entice little girls with a new “Disney princess.”

Mind you, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms certainly looks spectacular. The traditional Disney logo — Sleeping Beauty’s castle — appears on the screen; then the camera swoops past its spires and takes us on a breathtaking, owl’s-view ride above and through Victorian-era London, all in a single magnificent tracking shot, until we reach the Stahlbaum residence, home of Clara (Mackenzie Foy), Louise (Ellie Bamber), young Fritz (Tom Sweet) and their father (Matthew Macfadyen).

It’s a dizzying, captivating tour-de-force opening by cinematographer Linus Sandgren, production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas, and visual effects maestros Max Wood and Marc Weigert.

Things get even more dazzling when the Stahlbaum family joins the cream of London society at the annual Christmas Eve ball, held in the even more opulent palatial estate of Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman). He’s an eccentric, well-traveled entrepreneur and inventor, who also happens to be Clara’s godfather. She shares his talent for tinkering and fabrication: a gift revealed earlier, in the Stahlbaum attic, where she dazzles Fritz with a complicated, Rube Goldberg-esque mousetrap that (briefly) captures an actual mouse.

But Clara is troubled and saddened: This is the first Christmas without her mother, Marie, who — in the rather harsh Disney tradition — is dead before this story takes place. Consumed by her own grief, Clara fails to register her father’s similarly forlorn bearing (a mood that Macfadyen conveys with a persuasive subtlety the rest of this film lacks).

Ah, but Marie has bequeathed a special gift to Clara this Christmas Eve: an ornate, locked metal egg accompanied by a note that reads “Everything you need is inside.” But the egg requires a golden key that Clara does not possess; she hopes that her godfather will know how to open it. Instead, Drosselmeyer speaks in benevolent riddles and sends her along a ribboned trail to find his gift to her.

At which point, after following the ribbon through his garden hedge labyrinth, and the similar maze of upstairs hallways in his oddly, ever-expanding upstairs wings, she emerges from the hollowed trunk of a massive felled tree in a snow-covered landscape.

Whereupon I turned to Constant Companion and muttered, “C.S. Lewis, here we come.”

Interstellar: Way, way out

Interstellar (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, perilous action and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.7.14

Nobody could accuse Christopher Nolan of possessing modest ambitions.

His newest big-screen extravaganza is a grim sci-fi drama that could be viewed as a reverential blend of 1951’s When Worlds Collide and 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, with additional nods to 1972’s Silent Running and Robert Heinlein’s 1956 novel, Time for the Stars.

When a solar-powered drone cuts across the sky above their corn field — a striking
reminder of science long absent from a decaying United States — Cooper (Matthew
McConaughey, left) attempts to hijack it while being watched by children Murphy
(Mackenzie Foy) and Tom (Timothée Chalamet).

Along with — and this is a problem — the bleak despair and distasteful human behavior found in the 2009 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel, The Road.

I had the same problem with 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan’s final entry in his otherwise impressive Batman trilogy. He and co-scripter (and real-world brother) Jonathan have a harsh view of people facing large-scale calamity, a trait shared with novelist Stephen King, at his gloomier moments. All three tend to assume the worst from mob mentality, with little of the nobler instincts that might make our race worth saving.

Then again, perhaps I’m unduly optimistic, choosing to believe better of my fellow citizens.

Such philosophical musings aside, Christopher Nolan has, over time, focused more on high-concept narratives and visual pizzazz, and less on character development. That’s a bigger problem. His dream-within-a-dream-laden Inception may have been a jaw-dropping head trip, but its characters were flat, sterile and uninvolving: two-dimensional archetypes about whom we didn’t give a damn.

Nolan has become more puppet master than actor-oriented director, manipulating his characters solely to maximize unexpected plot developments, as opposed to allowing them behavior that seems recognizably credible. In a way, then, Nolan is akin to his dueling magicians in The Prestige — Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale — forever tricking each other for the sheer sake of one-upmanship.

That’s not as immediately noticeable with this new film, mostly because Matthew McConaughey delivers enough agonized angst to carry the first two acts. He has matured into a richly expressive actor, and several of his scenes here are heartbreaking: none more so than the manner in which his character’s face yields to uncontrolled sobs, while catching up with some long-distance correspondence.

But that comes much later.