I’ve been waiting for this movie for a long time? I remember reading Nimona when it first came out and loving the chaotic violence, the fever dream quality of this story that so perfectly encapsulated what it means to be a teenage girl. The movie has been in production hell for a number of years, but the animation style will appeal to just about anyone who’s a fan of stop motion, whether it’s Laika’s Boxtrolls, Missing Link, and Kubo or Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and Fantastic Mr Fox. The CGI here is obviously not stop motion, but it has some of stylized blockiness of that medium. I had a chance to catch this with Wife and Bestie, both of whom were coming in with 0 acquaintance with the original IP, and it took approximately the entirety of the opening sequence before they were both completely won over. For Wife, it’s the careless cruelty of Nimona, the way she’s pawing at the furniture in the Castle during the prison break scene, desperate to cause some nominal amount of property damage. For Bestie, it’s the animals, I’m pretty sure? The fact that, even after I had assured her that this movie would be about a sassy shapeshifter, she was not expecting silly pink-colored animals.
For me, I think the thing that’s the most pleasant looking back at the movie is the odd feeling of discovering all the missing pieces of the murder mystery quite early in the first act and then spending the rest of the movie waiting for the heroes to stab each other in the heart. The montages of friendship and camaraderie are so wholesome and so much more satisfying when you know that in many ways they are building set up to fail in the second act.
If I had to think about some of the differences I think I remember from the original comic to the film adaptation, I would say that I’m fairly sure that Goldenloin gets some short shrift in the movie. I remember him being a bit of himbo in the comics and that dumb, brash quality making him all the more compelling as it’s slowly revealed that there’s some erotic tension between him and Blackheart, however in the movie, the erotic tension is front and center (the era of gay-baiting is over, huzzah), and that means that–I guess?–a decision was made that Goldenloin couldn’t be sort of dumb and mean, because it would undercut their romance? In order to do that, a new character is created as a sort of rival to Goldenloin within the security forces, played by SNL’s Beck Bennett, Todd. By splitting his “fratbro” (care of Bestie) energy into a different character, we’re left with an oddly tender and flat Goldenloin.
Nimona has a line in the comic that I think is probably among the best, something like “I’m not a girl who can turn into a monster, I’m a monster who turns into a girl.” It’s one of those moments of vulnerability and self-loathing that really captures the pain of growing up and feeling ashamed of your anger, and that’s missing from the script of the movie. In the movie, what is elevated is the flirtation with self-harm: I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that they want to stab me through the heart or that sometimes I don’t want to stop them, or something to that effect. The movie takes special care to make sure that Nimona is entirely free from blame when it comes to the destruction of any innocents. Even when provoked, she is preternaturally concerned with preserving life and safety of her hostiles, which I find a little too neat. If memory serves, she’s at least a little bit guilty about burning things to a crisp when provoked. On that point, I think they’ve preserved the magic of Nimona telling and re-telling her origin story in multiple moments in the movie to build tension to her twisty admission.
The music is rad. Her pointy teeth are bad. The dance sequence is rad. You should see this.
