Nimona
A number of interesting emotions and themes are suggested but rarely expressed well in the often adorable but mostly intense and overlong animated sci-fi fantasy “Nimona,” about a teenage shapeshifter and her disillusioned (and very literal) knight in shining armor. The future set, hyper stuffed “Nimona” is so full of Pinterest-ready details that it feels more like a stage adaptation of the greatest hits of the stylistic quirks and emotional beats of Pixar and DreamWorks Animation Studios than an actual movie. There are some mildly likable dad joke puns, sight gags, a lot of angst-y declamations about questioning authority and being true to yourself, and other bumper-sticker sentiments.
“Nimona” also features a variety of post-post-punk anthems and punk-adjacent music cues ranging from decent to great, including at least one Metric song (“Gold Guns Girls”) and some guitar riffs by ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones. And the characters’ designs partly modeled after those from formative Disney background artist Eyvind Earle’s work on Sleeping Beauty (1959) and the “minimal realist” illustrator Charley Harper fly across the screen with as much keenly observed fluidity as you’d expect from something made by many passionate animators who clearly cared deeply about this movie while they were making it. But several major characters’ facial expressions feel more like dutiful mimicry (since “Nimona” is based on ND Stevenson’s graphic novel) than truly convincing vehicles for their feelings. Their hearts are in the right place, but their mouths or doe eyes, or glass-cutting jawlines just pay lip service.
The biggest example: is Nimona herself. She obviously matters to both the plot and exhaustively detailed themes here; she’s eventually graced with precisely the kind of backstory that even she scoffs at earlier in the movie. She laughs off Ballister’s paternal concern and also avoids typecasting by waving away his “small-minded questions” the why of Nimona doesn’t matter, she says. But then she provides an origin story anyway, later on, which is presumably supposed to make us like her even more. She’s not a monster, as Ballister fears, but a well-intentioned misfit. Also: Nimona is the only friend Ballister has after his sword hilt fires a laser at the Queen and kills her instantly.
You may have some questions about that abrupt and surprisingly dark plot turn, but not much else in “Nimona” gets developed beyond crisply enunciated dialogue and slickly animated gestures. This isn’t a bad movie in terms of being poorly made; it’s just that whenever the characters talk or muscle their way through maybe too many details that might make us want to root for Ballister and his proudly irreverent sidekick(s), something always feels missing. Like He has a concerned but fearful partner, Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang), who’s another knight but also different than Ballister because he’s a descendant of Gloreth the mythic hero while Ballister is merely common-born, which briefly makes him look like an underdog.
As he pursues Ballister and tries to protect him from the tyrannical Director (Frances Conroy), the snobby official defender of the kingdom, Ambrosius abandons his wayward sense of duty. But why doesn’t Ambrosius who is supposed to be the kingdom’s favorite presumed favorite dwell more on Ballister’s relatively lowly origins? Why is this movie about brainwashing oneself into ignoring one’s programming and trusting one’s inner monster only interested in its characters’ emotions?
Nimona should theoretically synthesize the film’s two modes leaden speeches and light-hearted chases but she never gets to do much beyond defending her right to exist. Some will find this in-your-face character bubbly and spunky; others will see her as a well-crafted but empty collection of third-hand quirks. She has all the right moves, like shape shifting into various animals as she repeatedly saves Ballister from capture or punishment. But when she speaks, it is not with the voice of a righteous adolescent but that of a tough talking authorial sock puppet.
It’s hard to take a movie seriously when it so often tries to have it both ways, as “Nimona” does. Moretz injects some welcome irreverence into an otherwise stodgy anti-authority narrative, but creators go out of their way to pat viewers on the back for knowing that we know we’re watching a fairy tale that is fractured because its rules are made for tweaking. That sounds great so wouldn’t you rather watch something more than a proof of concept for occasionally charming but mostly just loud counterprogramming? Nimona is too calculating and savvy during her big heart-on-her-sleeve moments, she doesn’t seem like a character so much as whatever each scene needs her to be clever, sassy, goofy or wounded. “Nimona” is a big mood board.
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