Nimona

• Directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane
• June 14, 2023 (Annecy) / June 23, 2023 (United States) / June 30, 2023 (Netflix)
• Based on the 2015 graphic novel Nimona by ND Stevenson

Voice Cast

• Nimona-Chloë Grace Moretz
• Nimona’s Demon Baby Disguise-Mia Collins
• Ballister Boldheart-Riz Ahmed
• Young Ballister-Zayaan Kunwar
• Ambrosius Goldenloin-Eugene Lee Yang
• The Director-Frances Conroy
• Queen Valerin-Lorraine Toussaint
• Sir Thoddeus Sureblade-Beck Bennett
• Nate Knight-RuPaul Charles
• Alamzapam Davis-Indya Moore
• Diego the Squire-Julio Torres
• Coriander Cavaverish-Sarah Sherman
• Gloreth-Karen Ryan
• Young Gloreth-Charlotte Aldrich
• Syntheya-Cindy Slattery
• Institute Analyst-Sommersill Tarabek
• Patinece-Lylianna Eugene

When a knight is framed for the assassination of his queen, he must join forces with a shapeshifting creature to prove his innocence.

Nimona as a film has a bit of an interesting backstory. It was originally to be made by Blue Sky Studios which was owned by 20^th Century Fox but when Fox was gobbled up by Disney production was terminated by the House of Mouse supposedly because of the LGBTQ themes. After watching it I am thinking it just was not thought of as good enough to theatrically release and the official excuse placed the blame outside anybody connected to Fox or Disney. It is something that could thrive on streaming but not in a theater and I hope to let you see why I feel that way.

In Nimona the first character we are introduced to is Ballister Boldheart who is the first commoner to be considered for knighthood. That automatically makes him an outsider but not so much that he cannot make friends or find love. Why the Queen took a shine to him appears to be nothing more than his youthful spunk which is a bad factor to base socially impactful decisions on.

But on his big day Ballister gets framed for political assassination. I have a little trouble trying to figure out why anybody in the story thinks Ballister killed the Queen. I know the beam shot out of his sword, but did they do any investigation or analysis? Seems like a pretty bad idea to commit assassination with absolutely no way out and no doubt that you were behind it-especially if that person was about to give you everything you ever wanted and the world is aware of that.

While in hiding he is found by Nimona, a shapeshifting creature with no previous connection to him that was able to locate Ballister with relative ease yet the authorities cannot. It seems from the start she has chaos and destruction on her mind and by becoming Ballister’s sidekick feels she has found a compatriot in a man accused of assassination. Yet as the movie goes along she is painted as a victim.

From the start Nimona is extremely evasive with Ballister. Every question is ignored, deflected, or dodged. I can see her being like that initially, but the longer it goes on the more it seems like she has something serious and not nice to hide. The character borders on annoying because of this and also fails to develop since the writers refuse to give us anything.

Ballister is a little better but comes off as a desperate sad sack because he is either mopey or desperately trying to get his boyfriend to believe in his innocence. Why would you want back anyone that could turn on you so easily? Unlike in many films he has no support system of any type once times get tough.

And why is Ballister‘s boyfriend’s name Ambrosius Goldenloin? Everything I’ve heard about this movie sounded like it is aimed at children but Ambrosius Goldenloin sounds like a name from a porn film. Seriously. As a character he only switches back to supporting his boyfriend as plot necessitates having spent most of the story willingly hunting him down.

In this fictional universe everyone lives behind a walled city out of fear of monsters on the outside. Anyways, I can tell though nobody has actually come into contact with a monster in living memory in this movie which begs the question why is everybody so still afraid of them? There is a whole system set up to defend against them but it looks like all they have are cereal mascots and no actual creatures. And the standing army of knights appears to have no other nations to defend this city-state from. I am going down a bit of a rabbit hole but it just strikes me that the social order would have changed long ago. A line or two could cover a few of my issues but we get none.

Ultimately the character of Nimona seems like a genuine threat. In the finale she transforms into a giant destructive monster (the one that caused the wall to be built long ago) that probably killed a few people in her rampage and the hatred scene of the flashback is thus apparently justified because of that. I think that was unintentional, but it certainly looked like that.

The tone of Nimona swings from lighthearted to very serious. There is a no middle ground and it makes the tone feel very uneven and affects the pacing. Either take it seriously or make it light fun. In which case if it’s light fun, you need to eliminate political assassination.

And it feels like it really stretches out the story because there’s just so much general goofiness on the part of Nimona that’s intended to make this light and fanciful in opposition to the more serious elements. I really think this could’ve been around 70 minutes if they had taken out some of that excess.

This is written as if it was aimed at people with a very short attention span. It develops very little, and just jumps rapidly from spot to spot to spot. It’s made for the SpongeBob Generation and not for those that can sit still and watch a slowly and logically built narrative.

There’s just as much to dislike in this movie as there is to like and that creates an issue for me. I liked it but I do also don’t like it. It was good, but it was so flawed that it was much weaker than it could’ve been. Given the end product, streaming was certainly the better option.

Nimona is not a bad movie but it is certainly not a strong film. I think you’ll enjoy yourself but you might be bothered if you think about too much of some of it.