(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing trailer clips from Nimona)
Doug (vo): I know I'm jumping around a bit in terms of the order of Blue Sky Studio movies, but I think this might actually be Blue Sky's last film. Apparently, production got moved around a lot, and because of Fox and Disney and all sorts of behind-the-scenes trouble, it looks like Blue Sky eventually ended up going to Netflix to distribute it. Why am I going into so much detail about this? Well, it does play a little bit of a part in the criticism later.
Story[]
Doug (vo): The story...which is surprisingly kind of complicated, but you know what? I'm kind of okay with that, because they clearly want to make this a unique world...takes place in a, for lack of a better term, medieval future. Apparently, this great knight named Gloreth defeated this evil monster a thousand years ago, and so, the future now kind of reflects that whole knighthood style. Technology is very advanced, but they still have that medieval way of talking and dealing with issues and, like I said, knights still exist, they're kind of like cops in this world. The knights, from what I can follow, seem to be direct descendants of Gloreth, but the very first commoner is about to be allowed to be a knight. His name is Ballister, and as you'd imagine, he sees this as a great honor. But when he's framed for a crime he didn't commit, he's not only on the run, but he's befriended by a little beast girl named, you guessed it, Nimona. She's a wild child who also happens to be a shapeshifter, who thinks Ballistar committed the evil crime he's accused of, and thus wants to be his partner because she wants to be a villain, too. With the head of the knights, led by Ballister's boyfriend, chasing him down...which is a complete conflict of interest, but I don't know, maybe things work different in this future...they partake in all sorts of chases, fights, comedy, and naturally, a great, big mystery being revealed, which isn't that hard to figure out, but thankfully, the film is aware of that and kind of speeds that part along a little bit.
Review[]
Doug (vo): Yeah, the obvious culprit behind all this is actually outed about halfway through the film and actually kind of wrapped things up early. For a while, I was actually really appreciating this film for not dwelling too long on a lot of boring tropes. I mean, the tropes are there, but they get past them quick to get to the good stuff, and for a while, that really seems to work.
(Footage focusing on Nimona and Ballister is shown)
Doug (vo): Nimona and Ballister seem to have good chemistry together. Ballister is very timid and by the book and hates the idea that he's accused of this crime, and Nimona is very sporadic and energized and likes the idea of, like I said, being a villain. But she kind of goes back and forth if that's what she wants to be or not, and when you get more of the backstory, it does make sense why.
(Footage focusing on Goldenloin and Ballister is shown)
Doug (vo): I'll be honest, too, I am kind of a sucker for these stories where a cop is chasing down someone that that person's in love with, and what I like about this one is that it isn't like he's chasing him and then developing these feelings, he already knows him, he knows everything about him. They're really close and they're a cute couple, so you really kind of feel the pain of him trying to track him down, but at the same time, he wants to do what's right for his kingdom. I really like, too, he uses little clues that he knows about him because he is in a relationship with him to kind of track him down, like this one scene where Nimona pretends to be Ballister, and she makes this joke about, "Hope you like freestyle jazz!", and the boyfriend says, "Wait, he hates freestyle jazz". Moments like that are really funny and add to both the drama and the comedy. There's one scene where it really looks like he's going to break character and somebody asks him if he's feeling okay and he has, like, this complete mental breakdown, and all I'm thinking is, "Okay, they're doing, like, the goofy, cartoony thing where someone just acts really over the top with the zigzag-y animation and it doesn't match the character at all, like, that's not what he would do". But then you see he isn't doing it, it's what he's thinking inside. That's a really clever but also funny way of showing what he's going through.
(Various footage is shown, focusing on the comedic moments and the animation style)
Doug (vo): Every once in a while, there's a groaner line or a joke that doesn't work, but the ones that do outweigh the ones that don't. I'd say there's really only two problems that hold the film back for me. One is the style. The medieval future is very cool and I like the way it's laid out and everything, and, well, I say the skeleton of everything looks okay. Like, the general shapes of the characters and everything, yes, looks a little Disney-ish, but it still looks good. The textures are way too simple. I actually went to check out the graphic novel this is based on, and, yeah, it's a completely different style, which is fine, but my guess is this was done to save money because it was passed around and in production hell for so long. It kind of looks like one of those VR games where you know they don't really have the technology to get some real textures going on, but they didn't have time to really focus on how to make it look more stylized and appealing, so it honestly looks like a Disney CGI film's first render. Like, you know, later, we'll put in the more realistic textures, and they just never get around to it, again, probably because they didn't have the time or money to do it, so I'd let that slide a little bit when you know the production history.
(More various footage is shown)
Doug (vo): The other thing, though, is as much as I was praising this movie for not digging into a lot of these classic, boring tropes, it kind of speeds past them just to get to some other classic, boring, drawn-out tropes. It's another one of those where there's kind of a misunderstanding, and while it isn't 100% a "lair revealed" story, it has a lot of the same beats and a lot of the same moping and doping around, only to come to the conclusion you know they're going to come to, and there's, like, three or four things that don't make sense about the way it's presented and what a character saw or believed or wouldn't believe and so on, so forth. And it leads to a climax that, aside from one really powerful image, I actually think this whole climax was probably constructed just around this one image, it does feel a little forced and overdone. I've seen something like this a million times, I've heard these lines a million times, I know pretty much how things are going to turn out. And even when it does get to the big resolution at the end, which is kind of thrown away in this dumbbell moment, it kind of made me realize how back and forth the movie went on its tones. Like, sometimes, it'd just be really silly and zany in a way that's like a "Oh, just don't think about it, it's, like, a goofy movie! Come on, we're just kind of having fun". And then other times, it'll just get crazy heavy, and I actually really like the moments where it gets crazy heavy, but it doesn't always gel with them doing, like, a silly dance sequence when things are going well that you can tell they were hoping was going to go viral.
(Footage focusing on Nimona's shapeshifting abilities is shown)
Doug (vo): I feel like I've gone on and on again about how a lot of modern-day commentary is a little too direct, which isn't always a bad thing, but there's just so much of it now. Like, one group is very clearly supposed to represent just one group in real life, or one person's issue is very clearly supposed to represent just one issue in real life. And what I was liking at first is that Nimona with the shapeshifting was kind of tackling a few things that were really interesting. When she's asked, "Why don't you just stay in one form? Why don't you just stay as a little girl the whole time?", she says, "It just doesn't feel right", it doesn't feel like what she's supposed to be. She likes to transform into different things, that's how she feels comfortable. That moment alone can connect to so many things. It can connect to sexual identity or gender identity or how you look, how you dress, how you act, how you talk, how you behave. It can connect to so many things, and I was really liking the film for that, and I was kind of hoping they dived even more into it. But instead, they go a very clear route where it's very obvious what they're talking about and what they're trying to say about it, and again, that's a little bit of a shame. Not that it doesn't deserve to be talked about, but I feel like it's being talked about a lot in the same way over and over. And it's not that it isn't relevant, it's that I would like some new interesting ways to talk about it, and I feel like Nimona's shapeshifting was the more interesting element that they just kind of let go after a while.
Final thought[]
Doug (vo): So, does it work? Yeah, just enough. In fact, actually, a little better than that. I think when this movie is really working, it's very original, has a nice edge to it, a good bite to it. I actually like this film isn't just meant for little, little kids. In fact, it probably isn't at all, I'd say it's probably more, like, maybe 11 or 12 and over. But maybe it got me too excited too early. I was really liking this world, I was really liking it wasn't going the traditional route a lot of these stories do, at the very least, it was speeding it up. And when I legit didn't know the direction the movie was going to go and then it's revealed that it is going to go the direction that movies like this always seem to go, it was a little bit of a letdown. But I think for maybe 11 or 12-year-olds that haven't seen a ton of movies like this or even adults that kind of think, "Oh, animation like this is always kid-centered", it's kind of nice to see something that has a bit more ambiguity to it. I just could have used even more ambiguity. I like the experimentation, I would have liked even more of it. But again, given the production history it sounds like this had, I should be pretty thankful we got what we got and that it turned out as well as it did and we got as good of characters as we got. It's a good flick. I feel like there's a phenomenal flick in there somewhere, but again, I have to review it on what it is and not what I'm wanting it to be. And for what it is, it's well put together. Armor up and fly on in for a decent adventure.
(A scene showing Nimona celebrating escaping the castle with Ballister is shown)