The Nutcracker in 3D: Critic Reviews

The Viennese scenes, shot on Budapest soundstages, give a new, dreary meaning to "workmanlike."

Who had the lamebrained idea for a post-apocalyptic 3-D Nutcracker that is lacking any trace of ballet?

The wildest thing about this movie is its faith that what kids (and parents) really want for Christmas is a Nutcracker version of the Final Solution.

[It] has so many terrible ideas that the terrible execution is almost irrelevant: Even if the film were well done, it would still be a travesty.

From what dark night of the soul emerged the wretched idea for "The Nutcracker in 3D"?

The familiarity of the music may actually be a disadvantage; the ear wants the melodies to conform to one's memory of them, but instead they've been tortured into compliance with the needs of a standard movie musical.

Spectacularly misconceived, bloated and incredibly ugly...

One of the most misguided children's films ever made.

This non-balletic adaptation by the Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky is something gnarled and stunted and wrong, something that should never have been allowed to see the light of day. How's that for a holiday-ad pullquote?

Delivering the cinematic equivalent of a lump of coal in a Christmas stocking, The Nutcracker in 3D is an apparent Scrooge-like attempt by Russian filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky to forever ruin children's associations with the classic Yuletide ballet.

Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

Your Thanksgiving turkey has arrived on schedule and it's called "The Nutcracker in 3D."

I have my theories on the true inspiration motivating the madness here. Something tells me if I bit into the negative, it might taste like whisky, insomnia, and repressed childhood trauma.

The whole thing is just so astoundingly wrongheaded.

One of the most wretched, misguided extravaganzas ever mounted on the big screen...a stale schnitzel.

A Holocaust motif? In a children's movie? 'Based' on The Nutcracker? No, we're not making this up.

An inchoate hash of classical children's themes and twentieth century flashpoints.

The best part of this variation on the classic ETA Hoffmann story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" is Elle Fanning, but it's unreasonable to expect a child to support the weight of a resolutely un-magical fantasy film.

[S]o gloriously horrible that Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is going to have to shuffle over and make some room on the throne of Bad Holiday Movies...

Andrey Konchalovskiy botches history.

Vienna. The 1920s. Albert Einstein sings...a world of proto-Nazi space-ranger rats led by a nasty, singing Andy Warhol rodent. But I don't have to tell you the beloved story of The Nutcracker...

Big-screen remake of ballet is too dark for little kids.

Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky claims to have dreamed of making this film for 20 years. Well, his dream is a nightmare.

A lot happens in The Nutcracker in 3D, little of it of much consequence.

Imagine watching Tchaikovsky's ballet after taking a handful of peyote -- on a day when all of the dancers call in sick and the orchestra decides to play a different set of the composer's works.