The Imax Nutcracker

Painfully unmagical but filmed in glorious IMAX-3D, this version of the traditional Christmas story, which debuted in 1997, seems to go on far longer than 40-minutes. And while there's only one very brief ballet interlude, it uses the familiar Tschaikovsky's score to establish atmosphere and bridge scenes, and features lots of stagy tumbling, posturing and prancing about. Little Clara (Lotte Johnson) receives the gift of a nutcracker shaped like a soldier from her eccentric uncle Drosselmeier (Heathcote Williams), a collector of antique toys. Under its influence, she has an elaborate dream in which the nutcracker grows to life-size and, with the help of assorted do...