ben-angstadt Review of The Hip Hop Nutcracker

The Hip Hop Nutcracker (2022 TV Special)

Dancing is great - I think, who knows with all the cuts

[5/10 · 14 December 2022]

I love Hip Hop specifically and dance in general, but this really missed the mark. What we can see if the dancing shows that there were a lot of talented dancers cast in the production. Many of them I know as performers at the top of their game. But the directing choices here are inexcusable. There are CONSTANT cuts. In one brief, 1 minute 30 second long routine, I counted 47 cuts. FORTY SEVEN! Add to that some absolutely atrocious camera angles, poor lighting, and laughably bad special effects and the whole thing just feels cheap. The music is pretty bad to boot - there had to have been the opportunity to do a recording of the tracks that didn't sound like it was a MIDI mixer on a $50 keyboard. I really, really wanted to like this, but it simply wasn't possible. I'd love to get a better recording with a more adept director, but with tWitch's tragic passing, we aren't going to get it.