When it comes to animated versions of the timeless story of The Nutcracker, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King is not as good as The Nutcracker Prince(just lovely all round) and Jetlag's(very good, one of their better animations too) version, but is much better than The Nuttiest Nutcracker(sometimes fun but often weird, not very easy to rate). The script is not always consistent, the dialogue while appealingly light-hearted is often too contemporary and anachronistic and there are too many in-jokes and pop culture references. But there are also some nice amusing touches like "real mature", "ramming speed" and "maybe they'll write a book about our adventure, or maybe even a ballet", the last one was especially clever and anybody who gets it will love it. The animation quality is mostly quite nice, the colours are vibrant and beautiful, especially loved the Land of Dreams and Drosselmeier's house, and the backgrounds are crisply drawn and detailed. Though there are some oddities in the character designs, too stiff and not fluid enough(especially Klara), and sometimes the animation doesn't quite match the dialogue, maybe because there are moments where animation was added which was not apparent in the superior Russian version of the film. The music is just great this said, the placing of what there is of Tchaikovsky's music is perfect and the songs are cute, catchy and touching, also not interfering with the narrative. One True Heart was the standout. The story is loose in detail to the original story, but there is a sweetness, whimsy and warmth that makes it true in spirit, although there is a lot more humour than the original story and the darkness of the original story not so much. The sound is of good quality, and the voice acting is dynamic and sounds as though they were having fun. Particularly noteworthy were Leslie Nielson- he sounded as though he was having a ball as the Mouse King- and Eric Idle's Drosselmeier, Florence Joy is also lovely as Klara and the Mouse King's assistants are funny. The Nutcracker is suitably heroic, a character who starts off selfish, suffers as a consequence and one who changes through the course of the film(Barbie in the Nutcracker also explored this). All in all, decent. 7/10 Bethany Cox
