NOTE: SPOILERS WITHIN FOR NIMONA!

It has been a phenomenal year for animated movies, and that is without my having seen Super Mario Brothers or Elemental yet!

As of this writing, the aforementioned Super Mario Brothers is the highest grossing movie of the year. Elemental came out the same weekend as The Flash, came in second place at the box office to it, then proved substantially better in every regard by cleaning its clock every subsequent week in theaters. It has been a somewhat under-the-radar success.

Across The Spiderverse is another huge hit which is getting absolutely amazing reviews and is regarded as one of the year’s top flicks. And while its American box office isn’t the same as these others, Suzume proved that Makoto Shinkai will just keep churning out high quality hits.

Also? Hell, let’s cheat and point out that Puss In Boots: The Last Wish came out ten days before 2022 ended, so it’s BASICALLY a 2023 movie for all intents and purr-poses. I keep meaning to watch that because the buzz has been so good, and maybe I’ll make that my goal this week…

Anyway, the point is that the animation side of 2023’s cinematic calendar is just churning out great outing after great outing. Which brings us to Netflix’ new movie, Nimona.

Nimona is set in a very contradictory world. It’s the future (with flying cars and ray guns and advanced technology and all that entails), but society is based on medieval culture. There is a queen, and a royal guard made up of knights, and a very clearly defined class system. Outside the walls of the kingdom are the dark lands, ruled over by monsters, which the knights are on duty to defend the realm against.

Ballistar is set to be the first ever commoner knighted in the kingdom, and he has a secret romance with golden child Ambrosius, who is a direct descendant of Gloreth, the savior of the people. At his knighting, Ballister’s sword malfunctions, killing the queen and sending him to prison.

He escapes with the help of a shapeshifter named Nimona who seems to be looking for a patsy to help her upend the whole system, which she sees as corrupt. With Ballistar having no real options outside of relying on the shady Nimona, he takes her up on the deal and they set about clearing his name.

And from there… man, I could give you spoilers, but nothing I say is going to blow your mind too much. Nimona’s plot doesn’t exactly leave you guessing, and most of what you think is going to happen happens. We’re not dealing with Kaiser Soze here. It’s a a light-hearted, animated romp!

A noteworthy side story to the movie that needs to be mentioned is that Disney acquired the rights to it back during the Fox merger, but they balked at the LGBTQ-ness of it all and dumped it, allowing Netflix to swoop in and give it a home. I mean… the love story–which is, like, the third or fourth most important plot element–is between two dudes, and they kiss at one point. If your takeaway from this movie is “two men kiss”, then… I don’t know what to do for you.

So… take that for what it’s worth!

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+I mean, Star Wars is just “Medieval Knights But In The Future”, right? So I guess this is hardly a new idea in concept, but Nimona is a bit more literal with the concept, and seeing knights in suits of armor flying around on skybikes and shooting laser crossbows at people is a great juxtaposition. It shouldn’t work, but because it’s animation, the world makes more sense than it might if they tried this in live action. Purely as a conceit, I really dig this universe that creator N.D. Stevenson dreamed up.

+Nimona overcomes a sluggish start (more on that in a minute)to REALLY pick up in the second and third acts.This starts off ironically feeling very Disney Lite. You have a royal setting, a fast-talking, smart-mouthed sidekick, and a heroic journey. For the first act, there is very little to see here.

But as Nimona goes on, its really builds its own identity. The characters of Ballistar and Nimona get fleshed out, and you start caring about them. Nimona’s sense of humor finds its groove. The world starts making more sense. And by the time you are in the third act and you are getting Nimona’s backstory and Ballistar’s final conflict? I truly, with all of my heart, cared about what was going on. A line Nimona delivers about how she feels living in this world pays off at the climax in a heart-wrenching way. Nimona’s backstory is predicable, but that makes it no less impactful when you see it in flashback.

Honestly, the movie is insidious in how subtle the transition from “This is fine” to “Wow, I really care about what is happening!” is.

-Speaking of that first act, Nimona takes a while to really hook you, and that’s wild because it gets RIGHT into the story. I absolutely love Chloe Grace Moretz, but the character of Nimona didn’t hit for me early on. She felt more like someone was trying to write a bad-ass antihero than a natural character. And with just how fast everything happens to start, you don’t get attached to anyone right away. So stuff is blowing by, but I hadn’t been asked to care.

And, I mean, this is what it is because, as I mention in the Ups, everything develops and evens out eventually. But if you want an immediate hook, Nimona could lose you before you feel engaged.

-Is it a breezy, fun, animated PG flick about knights and monsters? Sure. So maybe I’m being too harsh here, but some of the plot conveniences and big moments are extremely lazy. When the flick gives you the answer to who set Ballistar up, the reveal is both predictable and, frankly, really idiotic in how they get the information. When I saw the scene, it felt like “Wow, really? Okay”.

Also, Ballistar’s final great heroic moment is potent and emotional… but it also comes without any development at all. I don’t want to spoil the third act, but he kind of pulls an about-face on his recent feelings about things without any new information or reasoning.

I mean, the “reasoning” of it is the character development he had had to that point, I guess, but then THAT means the face he is about-facing from doesn’t feel realistic, either.

So you can’t have it both ways, movie!

OVERALL

Nimona is a movie that takes a really basic, paint-by-numbers plot, gussies it up with an imaginative setting, and then just executes the absolute hell out of it. Which is far better than having an original, brilliant idea that is handled with mediocrity. Will you see just about every “twist” or “reveal” in this one coming? Probably! Will you care about that? Nope, because the development of it all is just that damn good.