Nimona: Top-flight fantasy

Nimona (2023) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and occasional rude humor

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

The best science fiction and fantasy stories — even on the big screen, going back to 1927’s Metropolis and 1936’s Things to Come — have employed these genres as a means of illuminating and indicting lamentable, real-world human behavior.

 

Sir Ballister Boldheart is startled to discover that — among her many other unusual
talents — his new sidekick, Nimona, can breathe fire.

Rod Serling became famous for using his Twilight Zone scripts as subtle message parables on bigotry, government oppression, mob mentality, social justice, war-mongering and individual dignity.

This noble calling has since been picked up by animated features; The Iron Giant, Inside Out, The Sea Beast and Elemental spring readily to mind.

 

Nimona now joins their ranks … and it’s likely to remain this year’s best and most boldly audacious animated feature.

 

Co-directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane’s inventive fairy tale has the breathless, rat-a-tat pacing of a classic Warner Bros. Road Runner cartoon; the snark we adore in the Shrek series; and the hilarious visual set-pieces typical of the Despicable Me and Minions franchises. But although this new film is fun — and that’s Fun with a capital “F” — its power comes from the shrewdly savvy script, with its up-to-the-minute real-world references, by a sextet of writers, loosely adapting ND Stevenson’s (much darker) 2015 graphic novel of the same title.

 

The story’s core message: the shameful human tendency to regard “the other” as a monster.

 

But that doesn’t become clear immediately, in a twisty saga that hits the ground running, and never lets up.

 

A brief prologue — cleverly animated via still images within ancient scrolls — depicts the origins of a futuristic medieval world where sword-wielding knights exist alongside flying vehicles, giant screens and breathless media personalities. Society has been shaped by events a millennium past, when the mighty warrior Queen Gloreth slew the fire-spouting dragon that prompted the realm to erect towering walls to protect it from similar monsters beyond.

 

A long succession of highly trained young warriors has maintained this tradition; the story begins as the current inductees are about to be knighted by Queen Valerin (voiced by Lorraine Toussaint). This group’s stand-out member is an anomaly: Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed), the first knight-to-be who’s not a member of the aristocracy, but instead was hand-selected by the queen, when he was just a street urchin.

 

This hasn’t gone over well with many citizens, who disapprove of placing the realm’s safety in the hands of “a commoner.” Fellow inductee Thoddeus Sureblade (Beck Bennett) is openly contemptuous, having bullied Ballister since they began training. The only saving grace: Ballister’s friend and lover, Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang), whose noble lineage hails all the way back to Queen Gloreth.

Concrete Cowboy: Hard-knock life

Concrete Cowboy (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated R, from drug use, violence and relentless profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.14.21

Now, this is tough love.

 

Director/co-scripter Ricky Staub’s impressive feature debut is a gritty, poignant study of father/son bonding, set against a fascinating real-world backdrop that adds even more pathos to the emotionally charged narrative.

 

Fifteen-year-old Cole (Caleb McLaughlin, right) can't begin to understand the horse
culture that absorbs his long-estranged father (Idris Elba), particularly with respect to
the funny hats everybody wears.

The story is fictitious, adapted from Greg Neri’s 2011 young adult novel, Ghetto Cowboy. But the setting is completely authentic, its anti-gentrification message more timely now than ever. Staub and co-scripter Dan Walser make this issue organic to their film, without strident preaching; we understand what’s in danger of being lost here, and — frankly — the threat is repugnant.

 

The story opens on a grim note as Amahle (Liz Priestley), a hard-working Detroit single mother, receives word that her rebellious teenage son, Cole (Caleb McLaughlin, of Strangers Things), has been expelled from yet another school. It’s the final straw, and Amahle is at wit’s end; she knows that Cole is just a heartbeat away from a life on the crime-laden streets.

 

She therefore packs all of Cole’s clothes in two trash bags, drives him to North Philadelphia, and (literally!) dumps him on the doorstep of Harp (Idris Elba), the long-estranged father that the boy barely remembers. And Harp isn’t even home to answer the knock at the door.

 

Nessie (Lorraine Toussaint), a sympathetic neighbor, explains that Harp can be found around the corner, at the Fletcher Street Stables. “You’ll smell it when you get close.”

 

Indeed.

 

Alongside a hard-scrabble collection of similar horse lovers, Harp is a member of the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club (an actual 100-year-old organization, whose modern identity dates from 2004, with a tax-exempt status granted in 2015). The horses are purchased at auction, saving them from likely being killed; the loosely monitored program provides a positive — and rigorous — working experience for local youth who otherwise might succumb to the temptations of the streets.

 

And it’s absolutely the last thing Cole wants any part of. Particularly since his father seems far more concerned about the horses’ welfare, than his son’s. Indeed, Harp even lives with a horse, having built a makeshift stall in his apartment (a thoroughly ludicrous notion, but hey: roll with it).

 

Cole would much rather spend time with Smush (Jharrel Jerome), a ne’er-do-well cousin who acts as a low-level gopher for a local crime baron who’s clearly Very Bad News. This prompts Harp to lay down the law: Cole won’t be welcome — at home, or at the stables — if he dallies with Smush.