The Secret of NIMH (1982) - A truly amazing and timeless classic

The 1980s was an amazing decade for a lot of reasons, awesome music, hilariously awful fashion, video games becoming popular, and animation getting out of the rut it has been in since at least the forties. You see, the eighties was the last decade that the "it's for kids" mentality was really a driving force of the animation being made. It still exists mind you, but nowadays we have an understanding that animation can be made for anyone. This idea really did begin in the seventies with Ralph Bakshi, but it became more of an explored concept in the eighties with releases like Heavy Metal in 1981, Akira and Grave of the Fireflies in 1988 and The Simpsons in 1989. On top of that, we also got a lot more adult children's films, ranging from The Fox and the Hound (one of my personal favourites) and the works of Don Bluth. After he left Disney, he made some of the greatest animated features of the 1980s, starting with The Secret of NIMH.

The Secret of NIMH tells the story of a field mouse named Mrs. Birsby, as she must find a way to move off of her field to avoid getting her and her children killed by the farmer's plow. However, as one of her children is sick and cannot be moved, she must seek help from the Rats, who come from a scientific research lab and have gained superior intelligence. Here, she learns the past of her deceased husband and meets the elder Nicodemus, who tells of her their plans to leave the farm altogether and live independently. However, a power hungry rat named Jenner wishes to sabotage the plans and stay in the rosebush they inhabit. The plot is loosely based on a book, which, this time I have actually read, but a long time ago, I was in Middle School when I read it. So, like usual, I am unable to comment on book accuracy.

As for the plot itself, it is solid. We get to see the motivations of characters and why they do what they do. We see why Mrs. Brisby goes to rough lengths to save her family, why Jenner is in favour of the moving project, and it is seeing these motivations that makes the plot stronger and the characters more interesting.

Speaking of which, when it comes to characters, this movie is almost perfect. Mrs. Brisby is a great character, she's timid and worrisome, but also brave and determined. She'll do whatever it takes to save her family, risking the same fate as her late husband. The rest of the characters are fine, Justin is your typical "Leader-to-be" character, Jenner is your typical treacherous villain, Nicodemus is your typical old wise man, they aren't bad characters, they're actually great characters, and dialogues they have are always interesting, it is more that their motivations won't necessarily shock you. The only character I really found myself disliking was the crow Jeremy, which is kind of funny because Crows are my favourite bird. Jeremy was just really annoying to me, and I get that was kind of the idea, but I found myself really annoyed by him at times. I found myself fast forwarding through his scenes a lot, I really could not stand him.

While the eighties is not knows for super pretty animation, I do think that this movie looks amazing. Don Bluth is an amazing animator and while there are no visible animation errors, the real treat is the design and colours. The design of the home of the rats is really cool, and seeing a lot of the lights is neat. The colour scheme is also nicely varied, a lot of scenes are bright and colourful, others are dark and moody. The canal in the cave is a beautiful and the scene with the Owl is amazing. I have never been more amazed than afraid of a spider in an animated movie, well one that was supposed to be scary anyway. While the movie does have the eighties style to it, it is an aesthetic I enjoy, so it will really come down to your preference on that one. As a whole, the animation is solid, and really does showcase the talents of Don Bluth and his team.

The Secret of NIMH is a wonderful movie. It has a solid plot, identifiable motivations, wonderful characters, amazing background design, smooth animation, beautiful colours, this is a must see for any animation fan. Really, most of the Don Bluth catalogue is worth checking out. He really did some incredible movies, and I really hope we get that Dragon's Lair movie soon. As for The Secret of NIMH, it is a timeless classic that many kids and adults will love. While it is not one of my all time favourites, I still think this movie has earned a High Recommendation.

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) - An entertaining road trip movie with our favourite characters

If there was one movie I have been waiting to talk about it would be this one. I was a huge SpongeBob fan as a kid, and even today I still have a love for the cheery yellow sponge. I even purchased a full DVD set of the first one-hundred episodes, and if there is any merchandise I'm going to buy, it is either going to be Disney, My Little Pony, or SpongeBob. So, I have been waiting to revisit this movie and give it a review on this blog, and since the most anticipated releases this year are 40 minute specials of Rocko's Modern Life and Invader Zim, the timing is perfect. While SpongeBob was not the first Nicktoon to have it's own movie, prior to this was Rugrats, and if we want to include other Nickelodeon shows, Good Burger predates that as well, but this is the first one I remember and it was probably the first one most people my age saw, also I'm not a big fan of Rugrats or Klasky-Csupo so, SpongeBob it is.

Full disclosure, I actually wanted to review the Hey Arnold Jungle Movie this week, but I had some trouble with it, and decided to cut it for the time being. This is getting to be a bad habit, I know, I'm going to try and get better at it. Though, I think I've been looking at enough movies from this decade, I should be branching out into older decades, I realize the 2000s is not that old of a decade, but I do need to look at more movies from then. Anyway, I do apologize for the change, I am going to work on it.

So, what is the plot of the SpongeBob movie? Well after getting passed on a promotion at work, SpongeBob has to prove he is not a kid when Plankton steals King Neptune's crown and frames Mr. Krabs and he and Patrick must go through horrible obstacles such as a dangerous trench, a tough-guy biker bar, and the most challenging of them all, David Hasslehoff, and return the crown within six days to free Mr. Krabs. Meanwhile, Plankton steals the Krabby Patty formula and uses this opportunity to take over Bikini Bottom, can SpongeBob and Patrick save the day? I think as a cinematic adventure for SpongeBob, this is a good plot. SpongeBob does not leave Bikini Bottom very often, or did not at this point, so a plot that took him out of his usual environment was kind of cool, and it also briefly took him to the surface world which only happened once or twice in the series prior. Plotwise, the movie is solid, while it may have a couple hiccups here and there, I never found anything distracting, and I only had one question with the plot; What was the timeline of events?

Okay, so SpongeBob and Patrick spend one day to get to destination A, there they see a sing that tells them they have five days to go to get to their main destination. We have no time skip from there to destination B, so we can assume it was one day. Then after the trench they get caught by a "Cyclops" (Really a Scuba Diver in a dry suit) and are trapped there for, as far as we can tell the rest of the night. However, when we cut back to King Neptune, he is saying that the time has ran out and Mr. Krabs is on death row. So, either, they spent three days on the road instead of one, or they were unconscious for three days in Shell City, or King Neptune is a lying jerk. It is a weird problem with the plot, but I'm not sure it is a major one. I didn't notice it as a kid, and I don't think a lot of kids will, not that kids won't, some kids will probably notice, but even then there is more to this movie than the plot.

This movie is definitely more of a comedy than the last cartoon adaptation I reviewed. Though My Little Pony is more of a slice of life/fantasy series, where as SpongeBob is mostly a comedy series. When it comes to the humour, I did find myself laughing at a lot of the jokes. It is tough to talk about the humour of a movie because, you don't want to spoil the jokes, but you also don't want to leave it vague, so I'm going to say, it is not the funniest movie I've ever seen, I do think the sequel might give it a run for its money, but it is a funny movie.

Character wise, the majority of the cast of the show comes back in some way. If you love SpongeBob, Patrick and Plankton, they have the majority screen time of the cast. Plankton might be a bit too evil in this movie, and I do think they could have written a better angle on his turn to dictatorly madness, but he was still fun to watch. As for the new characters, King Neptune is funny, though is your standard "King" character. Princess Mindy is kind and wants her father to be more compassionate, she is not a bad character, but is not the best character in the movie. That would go to the other antagonist of the movie, Dennis, a killer for hire sent by Plankton to dispose of SpongeBob and Patrick. He is just awesome, he is that character you kind of see as the epitome of cool when you're younger, but as an adult you see the humour of his character, I mean, he wears sunglasses, over his sunglasses, that's kind of funny. When it comes to the characters, I have no complaints with this movie, while I would have liked to see the rest of the main cast have more screentime, I did enjoy the new characters, the sequel would do this aspect better, but I'll review that when I have a physical copy.

Animation wise, I mean it is a television cartoon being put in theatres, of course the animation looks wonderful. That being said, I did notice some moments that seemed off, I thought there were times lip syncing was off when they could get away with it. That being said, it was only really noticeable when I paid close attention. Other than that, the rest of the animation is smooth and the colours match the mood. When the scene is cheery and child friendly, it's full of bright colours, when Plankton takes over, the scene becomes dark and muddy, the trench itself is dark and eerie with less browns and more greens, the Trench is also dark, but with more of a blue tone. It's cool to see how many different sets of colours can be used with bright and dark settings. On the other side of the technical, the music isn't bad, background music does its job, and even Motörhead get a musical cameo. The main songs of the movie are also good, I really enjoyed the silliness of the "Now That We're Men" song, and the "Goofy Goober Rock" parody of "I Wanna Rock" is one of the most memorable parts of the movie, even if it is a bit of a deus ex machina. Of course, the voice actors do a good job, and the live action portions are done decently, on the technical aspects, this movie is fine.

As a SpongeBob fan, I can say that if you love the show's early seasons, you'll love the movie. If you are new to the series, I don't think I'd recommend you start here. Looking at the movie critically, it does have some flaws, but as a whole, it is an entertaining movie. I am tempted to dock it points for its flaws, as when you focus on them they are big, but personally speaking, I only thought that after I finished the movie, and during the movie, I enjoyed my time. So, while I would label this a slight recommendation, I think as a whole, it is a movie worth seeing, especially if you are a fan of the show, though in that case, you have probably already seen it.

First Impressions: The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019)

I was not expecting to write another First Impressions blog so soon, but here we are, with the second Angry Birds movie.

You know, I had no real expectations for this movie, I kind of expected it to just be another Secret Life of Pets 2 situation where, it was harmless, but near unwatchable because of the sheer amount of nothing that was happening, that for the record is why I did not write a First Impressions on Secret Life of Pets 2. So with my low expectations, and the fact that I have yet to see the first movie, it should not surprise anyone that I really enjoyed my time with this movie, yeah I know, a comedy movie being enjoyable, what is this crazy world coming to? Next you'll tell me that a Disney movie will be successful! </sarcasm>

All joking aside, this is a really funny movie. So many of the jokes had me howling with laughter. I think the joke that made me fall in love with the movie's humour is when the hatchlings end up in space. Yes, they play David Bowie's "Space Oddity", but the total absurdity of the movie's humour is what I love about animation. Not just that you can make fantasy a reality, but because you can get away with absurd, inane or even down right stupid jokes and concepts. I mean, the disguise the characters use in the movie is ridiculous, and it moves so unconvincingly that it on its own is silly, but then you have the fact that everyone thinks the disguise is not only a real person, but also that it is challenging them to a break-dancing competition, that is ridiculous and I love it. This might be the funniest animated movie of the year. I mean, what else is there really?

We have Missing Link, which was fine, but was not super hilarious. We have UglyDolls which, no. Wonder Park which is also a no, and Norm of the North 3 which doesn't even warrant acknowledgment.

I won't say it was all direct hits, but I think the jokes were more hit than miss.

But that is the humour, how about the rest of the movie? Honestly, it's fine. I did enjoy the characters, and the main plot of the movie. There were some scenes I could have done without, like the speed dating scene, but even then I do have to admit, the main character arc is an important one. I do think that while the humour is the strongest aspect of this movie, the plot and characters are not weak aspects on their own. If anything the weakest aspect was probably the reveals, not that they were bad reveals, but that they were just the weakest part of the movie.

Really, everything else was fine. I loved the villain, I thought she was highly entertaining and fun to watch. I almost wish they gave her a villain song just to spend a little more time with her. The side plot about the hatchlings trying to retrieve some unhatched eggs they misplaced was super funny, those poor baby birds could not catch a break, and I dare not spoil the whole thing for you.

As a whole, I was really surprised at this movie. What I was expecting to be a lousy, quick and dirty movie for kids, ended being a movie I laughed at more than so far any other movie I've seen in theatres all year. While I would love to give it a High Recommendation rating, I am going to dock a couple points just to be safe. The thing with comedies is that, some of them don't hold up, so come next year, I'll take a second look at this and see if I am correct in my choice, or if not. Either way, I still recommend this for any animation enthusiast out there.

First Impressions: Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling (2019)

How do I begin this first impressions post? Seriously, how do I? I guess I'll begin with the hype. I have kind of fallen out of the whole fandoms thing. I used to be huge into Creepypasta and My Little Pony, but as time went forward, I kind of fell out of them. I used to write creepypasta reviews on my DeviantArt, I stopped them last year because I was getting burnt out. I bring this up because, I did not hear a lot of excitement around the special, not that there was none, I am sure there was a lot, but the most I heard was that this and the Invader Zim special "Enter the Flourpos"... the Florpous, the Floor-pus... whatever, someone will correct me, were both greenlit by Netflix. As for me, I was fine with them, I was not huge into either show, but it seemed people were happy to get them, and it seems that the original creators would have their hands in these movies. In any case, I myself was not against this special being made unlike the Disney live-action remakes or the SpongeBob Spin-Off.

Now, I was not entirely hyped myself, mostly because I have not watched the show, Rocko's Modern Life, in years, I think was just entering my early teen years when I last watched it before now, but I chose to rectify that mistake.

After watching a couple episodes of the show, I feel like the humour did not really gel with me. I was not laughing as much as I felt I should have, but I was still going to give this movie a chance.

Having seen it, I can safely say that if you enjoy the show, you'll enjoy this movie. It has Joe Murray at the helm once more and is as a Rocko special would most likely feel like for fans. It pokes fun at modern culture, has a similar kind of humour and is... fine.

Yeah, I'm not big on the show, but I acknowledge that the special is good. I'm not going to say I never laughed, there were a couple moments that did have me chuckling, and I did like the theme about change and having to accept it, could have done without the literal "Winds of change" myself though, was not fond of that joke. I guess that is my entire first impressions, it is a fine special if you like the show, but if you haven't seen the show, I'd recommend checking a few episodes out first and see if it is your thing. As for me, it is not.

Oh, yeah, there is also the whole "Making a character Trans thing" right, my thoughts on that. Well, first off I would have been a bit upset if Netflix had the concept shoe-horned in, but from what I have heard, it was actually Joe Murray's choice, and upon hearing that, I was curious to see where it would go. I think it was handled well, granted I am not a Trans person and have only been curious about transitioning myself, so I might not be the best person to discuss how the special handled it. I will say, I do like how the character's father is not entirely against the change, one could make the argument that too much has changed for him in such a short time and he could not handle it, I did think that was clever.

Oh yeah, one more thing, why does Letterboxd count this as a movie, but not the SpongeBob Birthday Blowout special? Both clock in over 40 Minutes, and both the American Film Institute and the British Film Institute consider the minimum length of a feature film to be Forty Minutes.

I am not sure, maybe it was because the SpongeBob special was split into two parts, but Letterboxd also logs short films as well, including the dreadful "Cans Without Labels".

I guess that does not really matter. Anyway, my rating for this special, if you like Rocko's Modern Life, you will probably enjoy this movie, but I have a rating I give to films that I give specifications for who might enjoy seeing it.

Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992) - A bland and preachy slog to sit through.

Okay so, I took a couple weeks off, I have tried to write a review for a different movie but that movie was really, really annoying to sit through. I wanted to take a bit of time off to relax and enjoy the utter boiling heat my city is dealing with currently, in that time I did an animation experiment but what is important right now is that I'm back, and my movie of choice to return with is the nineties mega preach-fest before Pocahontas. FernGully: The Last Rainforest.

The Nineties were a mixed time for animation. There was a lot of good, definitely, and you don't need me to explain it all. Disney renaissance, boon of adult animation, lessened censors, CG, Anime in the west, Internet animation, the works. However, the nineties were full of issues as well, like when people thought they could make a profit by ripping off Disney, or the shows made with excessive gross-out content, or the rise in popularity of Klasky-Csupo, whose art style I am not a fan of. I mention all of this because FernGully is, in my opinion, one of the worst animated products that came out in the nineties, and this movie came out in 1992.

The plot of the movie centers around a fairy named Crysta who lives in FernGully. One day she happens across a human deforestation project and shrinks one of the people named Zak to learn more about the Human people. However, the evil pollution being Hexxus has been freed by the people and the fairies and Zak must ban together to save the rainforest and this movie is a preachy and boring slog. Yeah, plotwise it is pretty solid, I have no questions about how things ended up going the way they did, but that is not the problem with the plot. The problem is that is spends too much time showing off the majesty and wonder of the rainforest. Yes, it does give Zak and Crysta time to develop their relationship, but less time is focused on Crysta asking Zak to feel the pain of the trees and more time is focused on them swimming through a sparkly cavern. A lot of this stuff is just filler and could have been cut to make way for other and more important things.

Take Smallfoot for an example, I did not like that movie either, but when the human was introduced tot he non-human world, the Yetis were curious about him and the movie spent some time showing the Yeti folk learn about the human. Another example would be Monsters, Inc. and its human character Boo. When Boo gets introduced to the monster world, the monster world is afraid of her, but there is a scene in the movie where Sully learns a little about Boo and grows some attachment to her. Here, we don't really get either of those scenarios, the Fairies don't really want to learn about Zak, nor are they running from him. I realize both of those movies are more recent than this, but at the same time, it is a strike against this movie as well. When something has been done better, there is less of a reason to see what is not, and when Monsters, Inc. did the concept of "Human enters non-human world" better, than why should we watch FernGully?

Character-wise this movie is weak. Zak is the nineties, he is just the nineties. There is legitimately a moment when he says "Don't have a cow". Crysta is bland, she is the typical optimistic, hopeful and curious character we've seen a bunch of times. Pips is also uninteresting, and the rest of the characters... don't really have any. Even Hexxus, the main villain, we do not get any kind of characteristic outside of "Ee-vill", and Batty is just, Robin Williams. I love Robin Williams, but this is almost the same kind of character we would eventually see in Aladdin, the comic relief with all of the references and... it was amusing at points but at the end of it all I would have just preferred to watch Aladdin.

Now we get to the animation and honestly, I wasn't impressed. Full admission here, but I watched this movie on VHS so the quality probably was not the best in the world. However, even then I watched a bunch of other movies on VHS and found them to be absolutely beautiful, Prince of Egypt, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, heck even Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Same format, all looked amazing. I guess if I did see this movie on Blu-Ray I'd be more forgiving, but if I can not enjoy something on less than the best experience, than why should I bother?

The movie really should look more amazing, since the colour palette is actually pretty good. When the scene is lush and lively, the palette is green. When it is rough and dying, it's brown. When it's surreal and other-worldly it's blue-ish black and sparkly. I guess in the end the animation is okay, a couple flaws here and there but nothing that makes it suffer, though I did feel that when the movie incorporated CG (I think it was CG anyway), it looked pretty bad. I would not say it was the worst I have ever seen, but it did not sit right with me.

I guess I also have to mention the audio of this movie. Audio is tough because, backing scores are very rarely noticed by me. The good ones do not stick out all that much from the lesser ones, and only the truly amazing or truly terrible will stand out. I personally did not notice background music, I don't even remember if there was background music, unless it was the segue into a song sequence.

As for the songs, I felt they were all really short. I guess leave them wanting more and all, but most of this movie is showing off the majesty of the rainforest and you could not spare an extra minute for the songs? Or at least make them more grand and epic. A lot of people really like Tim Curry's "Toxic Love" but I felt like it could have been more. The song is four and a half minutes long, but feels like it is less. One of my favourite songs in an animated movie is Beauty and the Beast's "Be Our Guest", and while that song is shorter, clocking in at three minutes, forty-four seconds, it builds on itself, it's full of life, even with just the audio, and it ends up being the massive song. So the songs could have been bigger or at least been catchier.

This movie was kind of an agonizing slog to get through. I was not even five minutes into the film before I felt like I was being preached at, characters were uninteresting, and the movie liked to drag on and on by showing the beauty of the rainforest. I hated this movie, I never wanted to quit watching a movie so much before, it was that boring. I get that some people have a connection with this movie, and I guess at the end of the day I'd rather kids watch this movie than watch a movie like Duck Duck Goose, but that is not an especially high standard. To anyone that likes this movie, I do apologize, but I full on hated this movie, so to anyone else, I have to give it my lowest rating.