The newest Disney movie ‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ was released last Friday, Nov. 02.

The story begins on Christmas Eve when the main character, Clara receives an early gift from her father that was left behind by her mother before she passed away. The gift was an egg shaped box covered in jewels. However, she is frustrated by it because it is locked and her mother didn’t leave a key for her.

When looking around inside the gift box for the key, she finds a letter directed to her. The letter said that everything she needs is inside that egg. This motivates her to try and find the key. Unfortunately, she is being forced to go to a Christmas Eve party and share a dance with her father even though she has expressed many times that she doesn’t care to dance. She eventually gives in to going because there is someone she knows at the party that could possibly help her open the egg.

When she gets there, her family is consumed in small talk from people they haven’t seen in a while giving Clara the chance to slip away. She then goes to her family friend, Dosselmyer’s workshop to ask him about the egg. However, he informs her that he cannot open the egg because he doesn’t know where the key is. Disappointed, Clara leaves the workshop and returns to the party just in time for all of the children to find their gifts through a little game.

The children, including Clara go outside and follow a colored rope addressed to them that leads to their Christmas gift. Though Clara’s rope is a little different and leads her down a mysterious path leading to another dimension. The rope ends in a snow-covered tree that holds the key to the egg her mother gave her, but before she could grasp hold of it a field mouse took it for himself and ran away.

Angry, she chased the mouse in hopes to get her key back but is stopped when she finds a nutcracker soldier guarding a blocked bridge. At first, the nutcracker is hesitant and doesn’t want to let her cross but after he finds out her full name he realizes she is the queens daughter. This is shocking for Clara as well because she wasn’t aware that her mother was a queen or what she was queen of. She also learns that because of this, she is a princess.

The nutcracker then accompanies Clara on her journey across the bridge into the fourth dimension. He assumes that if she is crazy enough to go to that evil place that her key must be really important to her. They follow the mouse into the dark forest but are stopped when thousands of mice join the first mouse to form a monster. The mice chase them away, so instead they decide to go to the other three realms for help.

When they get there everyone is honored to see her because her mother was highly respected there. She meets the leaders of the three realms: the land of snowflakes, the land of flowers, and the land of sweets. The fourth realm was the land of amusements, but they refer to it as the fourth realm because they say she tried to over power the queen and take control of all of the realms for herself. Clara then learns that all of the people in the lands were once toys but Clara’s mom brought them to life with a special machine she made when she was young. That’s why she became queen.

The leader of the land of sweets, who is also know as the sugar plum fairy, convinces Clara to get the key because they need the key to make the machine work again. They need the machine to make an army of soldiers to defeat mother Ginger who is the leader of the land of amusements. Clara then begins her journey with the nutcracker to retrieve her key.

When they finally capture the key, Clara opens the jeweled egg only to find that it is just a simple music box. In that moment, she is disappointment and decides to give up trying to save the realms. However, the nutcracker motivates her and convinces her to bring the key back.

Later on, Clara gives the key to the land of sweets leader in a hurry to give the soldiers life to protect the other three realms. However, there is an unexpected plot twist when the sugar plum fairy gives the soldiers life for her own selfish reasons. She tells the soldiers to bring Clara, the nutcracker, and the leaders of the other realms into a cell. She lied to Clara and said that Ginger was the evil one when in reality it was her who wanted to take control over all of the realms.

Eventually, they find away to escape when Clara takes a closer look at the music box that her mother gave her and finds a mirror. She then realizes that all she needed was inside of her this whole time. They agree that the nutcracker will find Ginger while Clara tries to stop the sugar plum fairy from making more soldiers. In the end, he finds Ginger and tries to fight off the soldiers while Ginger and Clara work together to stop the machine. Clara eventually realizes that she can’t stop it, so instead she reverses the machine just in time. It prevented Ginger from turning back into a doll but instead took the life away from the sugar plum fairy.

Just like any other Disney movie, the protagonist saved the day and everyone lived happily ever after. Clara returned to her party where she made up with her father and shared a dance with him along with her siblings to the song playing from Clara’s music box. Her father even mentions that the song playing was the first song that him and her mother had danced to. Even though her mother was gone, they still cherished their time together and she will always be with them in their hearts.

Through out the movie the music was well placed creating mood and making the viewers feel certain ways during scenes. For example, playing intense music during suspenseful scenes to keep people on the edge of their seats. They also played music from the original nutcracker ballet to show resemblance.

In about two hours Disney allowed the viewers to experience bright colors, beautiful scenery, and good cinematography. The characters in this movie were well cast and they were complimented by well done costumes and special effects make up.

‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ tells the story of family and friendship and is the perfect family friendly movie to get you in the Christmas spirit.