First Impressions: Nimona (2023)

 

Well this is a movie that I never thought I'd really get to see. All the way back in 2021, it was announced that the film adaptation of ND Stevenson's graphic novel, Nimona, was being shelved after the closing down of Blue Sky Studios. It was speculated, and I think pretty much confirmed, that Disney cancelling the project had something to do with it's heavy focus on LGBTQIA+ characters, which I did hint at in my previous blog about it's cancellation, and lots of people began to believe after it was revealed that Disney CEO Bob Chapek had funded the Censorship Bill in Florida. So, when it was announced that Netflix was picking the movie back up, everyone who was excited for the movie was thrilled, though I did have some minor reservations... who am I kidding, I was hyped.

Netflix, for all the crap I give it, does take a chance on a lot of their Netflix Original movies, which was very evident in 2022 with the release of so many weird, unique and fascinating movies that were all really good. It actually gave me a lot of hope for Nimona, and quite frankly, I've got to be one hundred percent completely honest with you... you aren't buying this build-up are you? Yeah, this movie was really good! Like, really good, so good I want to break my no swearing rule, it was that good.

To be fair, it isn't the graphic novel, which... you know, that seems obvious, it's a movie, but in the sense that this is almost completely different from the original book. I can't help but bring up Coraline again, another movie that I felt wasn't much the book, but why did I like Nimona instead? Well, at its core, Nimona is still Nimona, the themes and characters are still relatively the same, whereas Coraline's theme was portrayed differently between the book and film, which I think changed exactly what the main idea was. What is the theme behind the Graphic Novel? That villains can be disguised as heroes, and what is the theme of the movie adaptation? Relatively the same thing, at least that's the theme I got out of the book. At it's core, Coraline was just different enough to bother me, while Nimona was just similar enough to not bother me, if that makes sense.

That being said, there are omissions from the book I do miss, like that scientist character that Ballister met at the convention, it was a big character thing for him to actually have a new friend after becoming the villain. Also apparently they changed his last name to Boldheart, which I think does kind of muddy the theme a little it, the entire point was that he was meant to appear as the stereotypical villain, right down to his name being Blackheart. I'm a little indifferent to the change of the climax, it is nicer that on some level Nimona is still in control of herself, and it was very heart-wrenching to watch, but at the same time, giant monster movie destruction is always going to be missed. I also kind of missed a lot of the medieval touches in the book, but it does kind of fit. The book was so medieval that future technology seemed out of place, while the movie was so future that medieval stuff seemed out of place.

To be absolutely fair, there is some differences from the book I did like. For starters, the gay subtext between Ballister and Ambrosius is now officially context, yep, they are one-hundred percent gay in the movie and I love it. They are not shy about it either,  right from the introduction of these two, you can tell they are absolutely in love. Plus, it really does feel like they did simplify a lot of the graphic novel, and for good reason. Like Nimona's backstory is different, but it works and her having a defined backstory is nice, where in the graphic novel we did have to infer a lot. Also, their plan in the graphic novel was a bit complex, so it's nice that the movie has a simpler plan that gives us more time for Ballister and Nimona to interact.

And yes, let's talk about Nimona the character, because she is fantastic. Nimona still does have some LGBTQIA+ and Non-Binary aspects about her character, but something else I picked up was some autistic aspects. The way she describes Shapeshifting, it kind of sounded very similar to stimming, and honestly, I really do think that was intentional. On top of that, Nimona was still the same spunky and energetic character, and her silly side is always on display. Seeing her when she's hurt is genuinely hurting, and when she's having fun, I'm having fun alongside her. Nimona has translated very well into film and animation, and may actually be one of my favourite characters in both literature and cinema, maybe the first character to be both.

Nimona was really good, I think this is in the running for best animated movie of the year. I mean, the only other candidate is Suzume, and honestly, I think it's gonna be a close call. We'll see how the rest of the year turns out, but I'm calling it right now, Nimona is gonna rank very high on my list of the best animated movies of 2023. It was fun, thrilling, genuinely heartbreaking, a solid enough adaptation, and honestly, it's just so good to have this movie out finally. Nimona really needs to be seen, watch it, immediately. Honestly, I do kinda hate that it isn't a Disney film, because I would have loved to see this in theatres, but then again... Disney might not have let this movie be this movie, so I'm happy to sacrifice a theatre experience for a movie as good as this.

Also, I want to give a huge thank you to everyone at Blue Sky, who put a lot of effort into this movie before they were unceremoniously shut down, and thank you to everyone who brought this film back and worked hard to make it such an amazing film. Thank you all, for everything.