The Nutcracker in 3D (2010)

How bad is it? Too frightening for intended audience, too muddled for others.
Should you see it? Probably not; if "The Nightmare before Christmas" wasn't dark enough for you, then maybe.

Filmed in 2-D in 2007, this was retrofitted into 3-D which is so murky that it's awful. Elle Fanning plays a child in the 1920's left in the care of her uncle, Albert Einstein (played by Nathan Lane). John Turturro plays the Rat King as a Nazi intent to blot out the sun with smoke from furnaces fueled with burning toys. Tchaikovsky's ballet is absent, but a bit of his music remains, buried within original songs that are forgettable. Hoffmann's original story is very loosely interpreted. There might be an idea in there somewhere and there's talented people involved, but it's a trainwreck and one of the darkest Christmas films made for children.