The Nuttiest Nutcracker

a movie made primarily for kids who have not seen or heard the original story, or have just enough familiarity with it that they will sit through the entire video to the end. It tries way too hard to appeal to the " 7-10 year old, bathroom talk is funny" set. Marie's character is hard to sympathize with since you don't know how old she is supposed to be...is she a child who is sad because her toy is broken or is she a teenager who resents her parents for not being home for Christmas ? Too much jumping between original premise and the modern spin to be believable. Visually the computer graphics could have been better but would have been forgivable with a better attempt at a story. Individual performances by Jim Belushi and others were done well. Again this will appeal to some kids, but not a movie the whole family will sit down and watch together once the kids are past 10 years old.