Nimona

In a technologically advanced kingdom, the kingdom and its citizens are protected by an institute of knights who carry on the traditions set forth by their heroine Gloreth who as legend held slayed a monster to protect a village. Ballister Blackheart (Riz Ahmend) has trained to be such a knight despite his lack of noble heritage but has been given the opportunity with the support of the Queen (Lorrain Toussaint) and his fellow knight and lover Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang). When Ballister is framed for the Queen's assassination he finds himself a wanted fugitive and loses his arm at Ambrosius' hand. As Ballister starts making plans to unravel who framed him, he attracts the attention of shapeshifter Nimona (Chloe Grace Moretz) who wishes to be a sidekick to a "supervillain" and believes Ballister fits the bill, despite Ballister's assertions that he's not one. With Nimona's help, Ballister unravels revelations about what truly happened.

Nimona is the long awaited adaptation of the 2015 graphic novel of the same name by ND Stevenson that was originally published in a series of chapters on Tumblr. Nimona was acquired by 20th Century Fox's animation division shortly after publication of its graphic novel form and actually made it through a significant part of development until of course Disney bought Fox and shut down Blue Sky Studios and many in development projects with Nimona being among them despite being about 75% complete at the time. According to former staffers Disney pushed back on the film's LGBTQ themes and the same sex kiss which may have been a factor in cancelling it. Thankfully like other cancelled animated Fox projects like The Magician's Elephant the forthcoming Escape from Hat, and the in development adaptation of Eric Powell's The Goon, Nimona found itself revived as a collaboration between Annpurna Pictures and Netflix and after an 8 year journey and I'm happy to say it was well worth the wait.

First on a purely technical level, Nimona looks fantastic. The creative team have done a fantastic job adapting the simple but charming art style of Stevenson's comic and with the film's mixture of cel shading and shadows it really does feel like a graphic novel come to life with some dynamic movements and designs that are truly breathtaking to look at. The animation on Nimona is especially to be commended because the way she moves and shifts from one form to another is near pitch perfect in its execution which is further complimented by the expressive faces each of the characters has that offers a wide range of emotions. Artistically speaking, the Kingdom in Nimona is a really unique take which I can only describe as "Medieval Futuristic" and its very much a mixture of Princess Bride by way of Blade Runner in terms of its mixture of fairy tale iconography mixed with holographic billboards and hover cars that creates a world that's got some many amazing details intermixed to make this feel like a living breathing world.

But Nimona doesn't rest on its visuals alone and they're in service of a great story with compelling characters. While needless to say the creative team have made some changes adapting the episodic graphic novel to fit in a feature film narrative, the story's core remains very much in tact even in spite of little details and side characters having been excised for the sake of a more focused narrative. Riz Ahmed is quite good as Ballister and his relationship with Ambrosius equally well played by Eugene Lee Yang is an endearing one that you do get invested in and it's probably been slightly strengthened in translation as the film starts off more tonally consistent as opposed to Nimona which started off more anarchic and silly while gradually getting darker (not a criticism of the book, they're both good in their own way). But at the center is undeniably Chloe Grace Moretz as Nimona who is pitch perfect in her casting and delivery. Moretz does incredibly well in the role as her rapid fire and hard edged delivery is well complimented by the animation team in a manner that reminded me of the perfect marriage of animation and performance that went into Robin Williams' Genie from Aladdin. Moretz gets some solid laughs out of her appetite for destruction, but she also gives us a heartbreaking undercurrent to her performance that we see more of as it's revealed her abrasive edge is a shroud for her inner pain. All these characters and threads culminate in a really satisfying way and I won't dare spoil it for you.

Nimona is a great animated film in a year where solid animation hasn't exactly been in short supply. I really can't say enough good about this film other than you owe it to yourselves to see it. Funny, exciting, heartbreaking, visually interesting. At this point I'm just repeating myself.

This animated movie is an adventure. The design of the world blends high-tech with mediaeval while mixing in a pop punk soundtrack that propels the on-screen action to a break-neck pace at times.

This leaves us with a fantasy show suitable for kids but with a deeper message regarding tolerance, propaganda and control that adults will find themselves reflecting on after the mayhem has stopped.

The tone can vary from Saturday morning cartoon silliness to the heartbreaking effects of isolation and loneliness, without inducing whiplash due to the carefully built characters on all sides of the story.

Highly recommended. I just hope they release the complete soundtrack soon.

I went in knowing nothing of the comics or the troubled production history, so I didn't have any expectations. I thought this would be just an entertaining animation movie on par with most Pixar products as I thought it would have more of an edge than Disney movies. So I was very pleasantly surprised by the originality and quality of Nimona! Yes, some parts are a bit predictable but in this day and age that's almost impossible to avoid so that's not an issue for me. But the rest, from the story to the directing and of course the gorgeous animation, is top notch and made me sad it was already over when the end credits rolled out! Highly recommended!

Nimona has become a somewhat unique and troubled production, partly because it was based on a web comic that got its film rights picked up by Blue Sky Studios (sometime after Disney bought Fox I think) only to be cancelled after 75% of the film was completed; then Netflix and Annapurna Pictures came into the rescue and saved the film from oblivion. And it's become a success too: people are already making fan-art, remixes, and reviews are glowing for this unlikely underdog of a film.

Now the film itself is like a cyberpunk Legend of Zelda mixed with trace elements of Blade Runner, Zootopia, Monster's Inc, Kick Ass, and the subversive fantasy tropes of Shrek (with additional satire for society and government institutions). It's also a good, briskly paced time in this medieval cyberpunk land of flying horse carriages, glowing swords and doe-eyed children evoking anime kids and Disney heart melters too. The vibe of this film... it's unlike anything from PIXAR, DreamWorks or even Blue Sky; and maybe that was part of the reason the project suddenly ceased to be. It's good that Netflix picked the film up RIGHT from where Blue Sky left off.

Nimona has a world in it that's just begging to be explored even further, because the film itself is like the tip of an iceberg in a self-aware way with its in-universe life of dragon-themed cereals, toys and of course the soldiers being the Gate Keepers of a world dictated by myth. So what other myths exist in the world of Nimona? Who knows?

As a film Nimona is un-pretentious entertainment that knows it's audience likes multilayered worlds that live beyond the screen, that animation is best when it's a remix of long-standing tropes and styles making for an experience that's unconventional yet it becomes a foundation in itself.

Nimona gets 4/5 stars. 8/10 IMDb points.

It's funny how I initially read about Nimona (2023) as an upcoming animated film on Netflix, which inspired me to read the graphic novel, which itself made me watch the animated film when it came out. And while the movie was good, it was missing some of what made the graphic novel great. But that's always going to be the challenge of adapting a book into a movie. Using the source material as inspiration helped make this film a tight story that works for the medium.

Sure, I would have liked to have seen an animated film in the distinctive style of the graphic novel. The emotions and climax didn't have enough time to get deep enough-like they did on the printed page. Still, I can accept that movies like The Shining (1980), Ready Player One (2018), and Nimona are distinct and different, but just as good as the books they're based on. An exact adaptation is pointless when the source material already performed this service. Nimona hit the right amount of frenetic action and visual gags that could only work in the animated format.

As a PG-rated movie, they replaced the edgy bits of the graphic novel with some childish jokes to appeal to a younger audience. Even so, Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz) was wonderfully sadistic and her "evil" expressions made me laugh out loud. Overall, the voice acting was superb, and the animation was clean-or at least as clean as the recent trend of "stylized" animation can be. Is it as game-changing as the book? Not really, but it's a fun film to watch. And, as I said in my review of the book, the more science fantasy stories we have like this in the world, the better.

A fun animated film inspired by the graphic novel of the same name, I give Nimona 4.0 stars out of 5.