* AudienceAlienatingPremise: A modern, big-budget update of the timeless yuletide ballet... with little to no dancing, pop lyrics slapped on top of Tchaikovsky's legendary tunes, an abundance of childish humor, awful CGI for everything, and a cast of such child-friendly characters as a creepy CGI nutcracker, a creepy clown, a creepy CGI chimp, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick and]] [[CrossesTheLineTwice ersatz-Nazis rounding up and burning "living" toys]]. Gee, why exactly [[SarcasmMode did this film bomb so hard again]]?

* AccidentalInnuendo: Close your eyes and the Rat King's torture of NC sounds like the most wrong thing ever. "Open your mouth... like a good little prince!" Ditto for Frau Eva saying to Mary: "Get changed, something nice... I'll help you."

* TheScrappy: ''Max.'' Being a [[DullSurprise poorly acted]] BrattyHalfPint is bad enough before he openly betrays the protagonists to the Rat King!

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Ninety million dollars and 20 years of the director's passion-project work went into ''this'' script? WebVideo/MusicalHell points out how the horribly out-of-place "[[PuttingOnTheReich the Rats are Nazis]]" plotline could have actually served a purpose and helped the movie if the real-world horrors of the actual Nazis was used as a thematic parallel to the fantastical evil of the Rat King in Mary's dream world similarly to the allegorical villains of ''Film/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'' or ''Film/PansLabyrinth''. Instead, the actual Third Reich goes completely unmentioned and the Nazi rat plotline isn't used for anything more original than "we'll make the rats look like Nazis because [[ObviouslyEvil Nazis are bad]]." Although we should be remiss to neglect while the original book pre-dated the existence of the Nazis, the book mouse-king goes several nights demanding Marie sacrifice her alive candy subjects to him, to which when he leaves them chewed alive to die in agony. To people only familar with the ballet where he is done in rather quickly, the whole this rodent is a homicidal maniac isn't a new twist on his character here.

** It should also be given a little bit of credit, a lot of films tend to shy away from Creator/ETAHoffmann on the grounds that his plots tend to be weird. This film clearly tried to keep the weird tone often left out in favor of the ballet's distillation. It's just in this case Hoffmann's weird is preferred as just better writing than this film's weird.

* In one scene, the Rat King electrocutes his pet shark [[ForTheEvulz for no good reason]], causing its corpse to float to the top of the tank. In the ''very next scene'', the shark is back at the bottom of the tank as if nothing happened. Even worse? The animators ''forgot to animate it'', causing it to sit there motionlessly in background!

* {{Anvilicious}}: '''[[PuttingOnTheReich The rats are Nazis!]] ''GET IT?'''''
* AudienceAlienatingPremise: A modern, big-budget update of the timeless yuletide ballet... with little to no dancing, pop lyrics slapped on top of Tchaikovsky's legendary tunes, an abundance of childish humor, awful CGI for everything, and a cast of such child-friendly characters as a creepy CGI nutcracker, a creepy clown, a creepy CGI chimp, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick and]] [[CrossesTheLineTwice ersatz-Nazis rounding up and burning "living" toys.]] Gee, why exactly [[SarcasmMode did this film bomb so hard again?]]

* TastesLikeDiabetes: The crowd song after the rats are defeated, which doesn't at all match the film's dark tone.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Ninety million dollars and 20 years of the director's passion-project work went into ''this'' script? WebVideo/MusicalHell points out how the horribly out-of-place "[[PuttingOnTheReich the Rats are Nazis]]" plotline could have actually served a purpose and helped the movie if the real-world horrors of the actual Nazis was used as a thematic parallel to the fantastical evil of the Rat King in Mary's dream world similarly to the allegorical villains of ''Film/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'' or ''Film/PansLabyrinth''. Instead, the actual Third Reich goes completely unmentioned and the Nazi rat plotline isn't used for anything more original than "we'll make the rats look like Nazis because [[ObviouslyEvil Nazis are bad.]]" Although we should be remiss to neglect while the original book pre-dated the existence of the Nazis, the book mouse-king goes several nights demanding Marie sacrifice her alive candy subjects to him, to which when he leaves them chewed alive to die in agony. To people only familar with the ballet where he is done in rather quickly, the whole this rodent is a homicidal maniac isn't a new twist on his character here.
** It should also be given a small credit, a lot of film tend to shy away from ''Creator/ETAHoffmann'' on the ground his plots tend to be weird. This film clearly tried to keep the weird tone often left out in favor of the ballet's distillation. It's just in this case Hoffmann's weird is preferred as just better writing than this film's weird.

----

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Ninety million dollars and 20 years of the director's passion-project work went into ''this'' script? WebVideo/MusicalHell points out how the horribly out-of-place "[[PuttingOnTheReich the Rats are Nazis]]" plotline could have actually served a purpose and helped the movie if the real-world horrors of the actual Nazis was used as a thematic parallel to the fantastical evil of the Rat King in Mary's dream world similarly to the allegorical villains of ''Film/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'' or ''Film/PansLabyrinth''. Instead, the actual Third Reich goes completely unmentioned and the Nazi rat plotline isn't used for anything more original than "we'll make the rats look like Nazis because [[ObviouslyEvil Nazis are bad.]]"

* UnfortunateCharacterDesign: It's a mystery what the hell the filmmakers were even going for with Tinker's design, but they probably weren't thinking about making him look so much like ''John Wayne Gacy.''

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Ninety million dollars and 20 years of the director's passion-project work went into ''this'' script? WebVideo/MusicalHell points out how the horribly out-of-place "[[PuttingOnTheReich the Rats are Nazis]]" plotline could have actually served a purpose and helped the movie if the real-world horrors of the actual Nazis was used as a thematic parallel to the fantastical evil of the Rat King in Mary's dream world similarly to ''Film/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'' or ''Film/PansLabyrinth''. Instead, the actual Third Reich goes completely unmentioned and the Nazi rat plotline isn't used for anything more original than "we'll make the rats look like Nazis because [[ObviouslyEvil Nazis are bad.]]"

* HamAndCheese: Creator/JohnTurturro's performance as the Rat King, when he isn't frightening children. He ''owns'' it, reaching "delicious" [[Film/StreetFighter M. Bison]] levels.
** Maybe he thought he was actually doing Springtime For Ratler?

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Ninety million dollars and 20 years of the director's passion-project work went into ''this'' script?
** WebVideo/MusicalHell points out how the horribly out-of-place "[[PuttingOnTheReich the Rats are Nazis]]" plotline could have actually served a purpose and helped the movie if the real-world horrors of the actual Nazis was used as a thematic parallel to the fantastical evil of the Rat King in Mary's dream world similarly to ''Film/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'' or ''Film/PansLabyrinth''. Instead, the actual Third Reich goes completely unmentioned and the Nazi rat plotline isn't used for anything more original than "we'll make the rats look like Nazis because [[ObviouslyEvil Nazis are bad.]]"
* ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs: The ''Nutcracker Ballet'' on LSD, designed as a punishment for children.

* UncannyValley: As if the CGI in the film wasn't godawful enough, have fun sleeping after you see the Rat King's aforementioned face after he assumes a more rodent-like, but still humanoid form.