So, I've been getting into comics recently, and I can't help myself, whenever history is involved I have to talk about it, and when it comes to comics and animation, you really can't get more prominent than Winsor McCay. Winsor McCay was the man who you can trace back all of modern animation and comics to. You ever heard of Walt Disney? R. Crumb? Carl Barks? Art Spiegelman? Chuck Jones? Pablo Picasso? All of them were fans of Winsor McCay, mostly his Little Nemo in Slumberland comic strip. I've got to say, these comics are fascinating, but I'm not here to gush about a comic strip from 1905, I'm here to talk about the 1989 film adaptation that... happened. I've talked about this movie before, because it was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Annie, but I didn't really go into any detail due to the fact that I haven't actually watched it at the time, and now that I have watched, I still have to wonder why it was nominated for any Annie Award.
In some respects, the Little Nemo movie is a loose adaptation of the original comics, sort of. Nemo is excited when a traveling circus is coming to his home town, but he's unable to attend as his parents are busy. That night, he is approached by royal servants of the King of Slumberland, whose Daughter invited Nemo as a playmate. However, a shady clown makes Nemo unlock a forbidden door and unleash a nightmare across Slumberland. Strangely enough, there are details in the movie that make me consider this a loose adaptation, it does recreate some of the iconic moments from the comic, like the bed sprouting legs and walking around, and most of the designs are pretty much right out of the comics, for better and for worse, plus they even give a nod to the main gag of the comics of Little Nemo being scolded for eating something before bed. That being said, as much as I can respect the nods to the comic, the problem ultimately is just that a whole lot of nothing really happens in this movie. Even in moments where the action is more intense, it's just not that thrilling. I don't know what the solution to this would be, maybe streamline the story a bit, or shorten it to be a short film, or make a series of short films and compile them as a package film, but this ultimately just wasn't the way.
It is tempting to say this is a case of "Too many cooks in the kitchen" because a lot of people were involved and interested in this movie. Immediately, the ones who were credited include Chris Columbus, Moebius, Ray Bradbury, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, and Brian Froud, even people like Brad Bird, John Lasseter and Hayao Miyazaki were involved at one point. However, I am hesitant to say this is the case because, again this movie is just a big lot of nothing, like if this is the end result of too many creatives trying to get their own input into this movie, I don't feel like they were really giving it their A-Game.
Speaking of not giving their A-Game, the Sherman Brothers were responsible for the music here. I don't want to say too much here, because Richard Sherman only recently passed away as of writing this, and let's not let what I say take away the amazing work that the duo have done, I've said it before, but basically all modern movie musicals walk a path that the Sherman Brothers laid with some of the best musical scores in film history... but this isn't one of them. The songs in this movie were pretty bland and it does feel like they were running out of steam by this point. That being said, on the other end of audio, the voice acting is alright. Decently big names like Mickey Rooney and Rene Auberjonois are here, and they do decent performances, but the child actors are mixed, I feel like this was more of an issue directing wise because Gabriel Damon is not a bad voice actor, I mean he voiced Littlefoot in The Land Before Time, but here, he doesn't have the chance to really express his range. Plus we get some cameos from names like Tress MacNeille, Nancy Cartwright and June Foray, which is always cool.
Animation wise, this movie looks fantastic. You can really see the Ghibli influence in things like the facial expressions, the little environmental details and even some of the background textures. I do feel like TMS was the right choice to bring this movie to life, I don't think Disney's style would have been beneficial to this movie. It really needed that extra detail to really make it pop. That being said, some of the designs were pretty weak, like the Nightmare Kingdom just looked like a generic swamp, nothing really creepy or nightmarish about it, even the castle looked like a generic evil castle, and the Nightmare King himself just kind of felt like Chernabog-lite design wise. It is always a shame when the animation is the best part of a movie too, because it's just like, really, this amazing animation was wasted for this writing?
Honestly, I have seen much worse movies, absolutely, however I don't think I've seen any... "Less" movies, I guess "Lesser" would be the proper term but it doesn't feel right. This movie just felt like a big load of nothing, I guess I don't hate it, there are things I can respect and I can see why this movie has garnered a cult following, but like, there really was not a lot this movie had to offer. Mediocre songs, and wonderful, if sometimes uninspired animation don't really add to the entire experience. Honestly, watching this movie, I couldn't help but think about how interesting it would be as one of those 4D Ride attractions at an amusement park, cut out anything that involves the plot, add a motion simulator and you have a pretty neat sounding attraction. Someone should do that, make a VR attraction based on Little Nemo. As for this movie, I do almost want to recommend it, because this is pretty great animation, but the rest of the movie just isn't really worth it, so I'm gonna give it a Not Recommended score, but I am curious to see what else could be done with the Little Nemo property.
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