The Viennese scenes, shot on Budapest soundstages, give a new, dreary meaning to "workmanlike."
– Mike Hale,
New York Times,
24 Nov 2010
rotten:
[It] has so many terrible ideas that the terrible execution is almost irrelevant: Even if the film were well done, it would still be a travesty.
– David Edelstein,
New York Magazine/Vulture,
29 Nov 2010
rotten:
This non-balletic adaptation by the Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky is something gnarled and stunted and wrong, something that should never have been allowed to see the light of day. How's that for a holiday-ad pullquote?
– Dana Stevens,
Slate,
29 Nov 2010
rotten:
One of the most misguided children's films ever made.
– Liam Lacey,
Globe and Mail,
3 Dec 2010
rotten:
Delivering the cinematic equivalent of a lump of coal in a Christmas stocking, The Nutcracker in 3D is an apparent Scrooge-like attempt by Russian filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky to forever ruin children's associations with the classic Yuletide ballet.