The Nutcracker in 3D (2010)
A question I’ve never asked myself is this: is it possible for a movie to score
nothing on Rotten Tomatoes? Surely not: I mean, even terrible movies such as the last two got about an average rating of 20-25%, so it would have to be the very worst movie, not even Christmas movie, but movie of all time to score zero percent, right?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the British-Hungarian collaboration
The Nutcracker in 3D, also known as
The Nutcracker: The Untold Story. From what I read, it’s a story that should have remained untold. Mixing in Nazi rats, dodgy fairies and a universal panning that LOST the production over SEVENTY MILLION DOLLARS! That’s right: it cost 90 million to make and they only took in 20. Hoo boy! Some nuts were surely cracked over that idea! Oh, and no ballet. You heard me right.
What’s odd about what Wiki says, when you dig into it, is that yes, it has a 0% scores from critics, but despite a single audience review it has somehow got a 67% score from audiences! No idea how that works. Also, the Wiki page gives this consensus from the site, but when I look at it it says “no consensus yet”. Still, it’s amusing to read; maybe it was taken down later. Here it is anyway:
"Misguided, misconceived, and misbegotten on every level, The Nutcracker in 3D is a stunning exercise in astonishing cinematic wrong-headedness."
Rotten Tomatoes ratings
Tomatometer: n/a
Audience Score: 67% (huh?)
IMDB rating
4.2/10
Metacritic rating
18%
Metacritic raise a grin too when they rated it at 18 out of a 100, and even respected film critic Roger Ebert blasted it: "From what dark night of the soul emerged the wretched idea for The Nutcracker in 3D? One of those rare holiday movies that may send children screaming under their seats."
The movie was nominated for, but did not win, the Golden Raspberry for “Most Eye Gouging Misuse of 3D” but did win Metacritic’s own award for “Worst Limited Release Movie of 2010”, so at least it won something. I’m sure the backers forgave and forgot. Mostly forgot.
Hey, Tim Rice was involved in this? I bet he kept that one quiet!
The director (whom I will not embarrass by naming) apparently made a conscious decision not to use any scenes from the ballet as, according to him, “ballet cannot work in cinema very well.” Must have been really pissed off then to see
Black Swan, released less than two weeks later, doing just that.