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. 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 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.

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 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. 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 nutcracker and the mouse king book