Movie Thoughts: Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001)

• Released: October 2, 2001
  
• Directed by: Owen Hurley
  
• Running time: 1 h 16 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A brave young woman named Clara ends up in a fantastical realm, where she and her friend the Nutcracker will have to stand against the evil Mouse King in order to restore the Nutcracker (who is actually a cursed prince) to the throne.

My Thoughts

This is one of the few Barbie animated movies I owned as a kid, but never watched all that much. Not sure why, I do like it a lot, but I really was mostly stuck to watching Pegasus, Swan Lake and Rapunzel. Also, quick disclaimer before going into this movie: I am not really familiar with the Nutcracker story outside of this movie so I have really no idea what they changed in the adaptation process. In fact this movie is literally how I was introduced to it and to my knowledge I've never watched another adaptation of it thereafter. 

So as a movie I do like this one, like I said before. I liked it as a kid and I like it as an adult. These early 2000s fantasy Barbie animated movies just have a real charm and sense of wonder to them I can't quite describe. They're usually simple but still really fun and imaginative. This one is no exception. Heck, it's actually the first out of all these films. So nice introduction here.

The story is pretty fun and imaginative, too, and I like the characters quite a lot. They're just fun to follow and you genuinely do root for Clara and Nutcracker/Eric, they're a nice duo and have a nice chemistry together. I don't exactly buy their romance or anything, but still they're not a bad couple or anything. The side characters all vary and the villain is a bit cliché, but still there's nothing really bad here if you ask me.

Visually the movie hasn't aged well, as is also the case with a lot of these early 2000s Barbie animated movies, but it really doesn't dissuade me from enjoying them. Heck, in a way it even adds a bit of charm since you can see these were made at a lower budget but the crew still gave it their all to turn it into something good, even if not visually impressive. 

My main gripe for this movie would really be the dance sequences. I get it, the Nutcracker this is based on is a ballet, so therefore they wanted to incorporate ballet into the movie. And that's fine in concept, but eh, I'm not really sure if it works, per se. They could've incorporated ballet into the movie in various ways, but the way they do it right now is that the plot just sometimes comes to a halt to watch a sequence of various creatures or people preforming a dance. Which just from a story-writing POV doesn't really work. Heck, even in the prologue scene before Clara is transported to the fantasy realm, it's never once implied that she's a good ballet dancer, so I'm not quite sure why she's such an expert on it during some sequences in the film.

I think a way they could've incorporated this better could be illustrated by the later Barbie movie, Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. In this movie, Annika, is a skilled skater and this is also widely illustrated in her introductory scene of the movie. It's her passion and she's very good at it. This then later ties back into the plot with Annika and her love interest Aidan having to use their skating skills to get to the villain's keep, the road to which is covered in ice. 

So here it was A) established well beforehand that Annika loves skating and is very good at it, and B) it ties directly back into the plot without bringing the story to a halt to show off Annika's skating skills. If they'd done something similar here in Nutcracker, where the dancing has some kind of point or power or whatnot to it, then it could've easily really worked. But just bringing the plot to a standstill several times in the movie for a dance sequence that isn't even animated all that well is just not something that works for a movie. For an actual ballet, sure, or maybe for a more abstract piece. 

But this movie is trying to tell a straightforward good vs evil fantasy story, so it just doesn't work here and doesn't make the plot flow very well. I'm not saying that every dance sequence in every film ever with a coherent plot needs a direct point to it (it can be used to convey something else, such as the dance between Belle and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast). But if it's done repeatedly and it doesn't convey anything or have any point for the plot, work it does not.

Overall I do still genuinely like this movie, don't get me wrong. But the weird pacing of the plot with those ballet sequences just left something to be desired.