Nimona movie review: Netflix’s new animated film is a visually dazzling spectacle with genuine heart

But instead of aping the visual style of large-scale productions from the likes of Pixar and Illumination, directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane have opted (smartly) to make the most of their lack of resources. While Nimona, at first glance, might seem unusually flat to audiences accustomed to the lush, richly-detailed worlds of the Kung Fu Panda and Toy Story movies, it embraces these limitations to offer a more refreshing experience than anybody might have anticipated. Although entirely computer-generated, Nimona utilises an almost artisanal animation style that is reminiscent of early period DreamWorks — older viewers might be reminded of The Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado from the late ‘90s.

Chloë Grace Moretz brings tremendous personality to the titular Nimona, a shapeshifting teenage girl who has the combined chaotic energy of Courtney Love and Dee Dee from Dexter’s Laboratory. A punk rock-inspired mid-movie montage set to the tunes of Metric’s “Guns, Gold, Guns” perfectly captures her spirit. Nimona enjoys scaring unsuspecting kids, and wreaking havoc in practically every room that she enters. When a beloved young knight named Ballister is framed for the murder of his mentor, she senses an outlet for her pent-up angst, and offers her services as a ‘quality sidekick’ in his mission to clear his name.

But behind her brash exterior, Nimona has a crippling inferiority complex. She’s convinced that her shapeshifting powers make her a ‘monster’. In the misunderstood Ballister, voiced by Riz Ahmed, Nimona finds a fellow outcast. It’s quite the pointed same-sex allegory, versions of which have been seen and appreciated previously in everything from the X-Men series and in Pixar’s Brave. In a moving scene midway through the movie — after we’ve spent around an hour being wowed by its slapstick visual anarchy and whip-smart one-liners — Nimona wonders what’s scarier, “The fact that everyone in this kingdom wants to run a sword through my heart, or that sometimes, I just want to let ‘em.”

Moments like this are what elevate Nimona to a higher pedestal than most entertainment directed at children these days. In this age of snackable ‘content’, the movie offers plenty of the requisite eye-candy and humour, but it never loses sight of the message that it wants to convey to impressionable young minds. In fact, this theme is baked into the movie’s plot, which involves an entire generation of children being conditioned to hate anything and anybody that doesn’t look like them. Nimona is far from perfect, but it’s a small film with a large heart that will work for both kids and their parents.

Nimona
Directors – Nick Bruno, Troy Quane
Cast – Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed, Eugene Lee Yang, Frances Conroy
Rating – 4/5