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. |
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.
The knighting ceremony draws everybody into a massive coliseum — this realm’s Super Bowl — and initially it appears that Ballister finally will gain the public acclaim that he has worked so hard to achieve. And then…
…things go horribly awry.
Suddenly on the run, and wanted for regicide, Ballister is desperate to prove his innocence … but he risks immediate arrest if he appears in public. Worse yet, almost everybody now feels that their dim views of “commoners” were justified.
Enter Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz), a mischievous, red-tressed anarchist and chaos agent who apparently has been conducting clandestine acts of social defiance for quite some time. She pops eagerly into Ballister’s dreary little lair, believing him to be guilty — therefore an outcast, like she is — and wanting to participate in whatever subsequent acts of agitation he concocts. Her gleeful desire for violence and mass destruction unsettles Ballister, to say the least.
Watch how cleverly Nimona’s eyes and malevolent, vampire-fanged smile are animated, during this initial appearance; every nuanced expression is perfectly choreographed to Moretz’s rapid-fire dialogue.
Nimona is quite disappointed to learn that Ballister merely wishes to clear his good name. Even so, she still insists on becoming his sidekick, pointing out that he can’t possibly succeed on his own. Besides which, she still hopes for a chance to maim. And break stuff.
In one of this script’s numerous bits of tart dialogue, she accuses Ballister of moping. He has good cause; after all, his pursuers include Ambrosius.
“Knights don’t mope,” Ballister snaps back. “We brood.”
This must be one of the most mis-matched team-ups ever concocted, as the horrified Ballister spends most of his time trying to keep Nimona in check. And it quickly becomes apparent that this isn’t an ordinary young woman, starting with her disorienting ability to vanish and suddenly appear elsewhere.
But every time Ballister starts a question along the lines of “Who — or what — are you?” she fixes him with a dire stare and replies, with don’t-question-me severity, “I’m Nimona.”
He’s willing to accept that, during their initial skirmishes and misadventures … but when their luck runs out, Nimona reveals her true colors (well, still red). Escape is achieved when — as each split-second action demands — she rapidly shape-shifts into a rhinoceros, an ostrich, a cat and even a whale. And anything else that seems appropriate.
Including, a bit later, a little boy.
This cacophony of visual mayhem is hilarious.
Matters get increasingly messy, during which the moody, quietly resolute Ballister and hot-tempered Nimona begin to see finer qualities in each other. It’s even tougher for the conflicted Ambrosius: on the one hand, trying not to believe the worst of his lover; on the other, forsworn to defend the realm now being held together by the Training Institute director (Frances Conroy), who grows increasingly determined to “protect our way of life.” By any means.
(That statement evokes the notorious Vietnam-era quote, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
Events build to what seems a climax — and resolution — and then we suddenly plunge into an unexpected fourth act. By this point, the pell-mell action and engaging characters are navigating gender identity, xenophobia and even Deep Fakes. And if that sounds too heavy and judgmental for an animated fantasy, rest easy; such elements are integrated smoothly and subtly.
That’s even true of Nimona’s most telling comment, uttered during one of her rare moments of despair over the direction this society has taken: “They grow up thinking they’ll be a hero if they drive a sword through the heart of anything that is different.”
Moretz’s voicing of Nimona is fabulous, and her line count must’ve been 10 times that of Ballister; the shape-shifter is a verbal force of nature. That said, Ahmed delivers just as much emotional juice, making Ballister an easygoing fellow who thought he understood his place in the universe, and is forced to reassess … well, everything.
The colorful character animation is spiky and angular; the male characters sport sharp noses, Van Dyke beards and pointed hairstyles. Nimona is more rounded and conventionally “fleshy,” as befits her playful nature; the Director has the stern features of authority.
Everybody has the overly large eyes favored by Asian animé.
This is marvelously imaginative world-building, with dazzling detail. Background tableaus are a clever blend of Blade Runner and medieval-style marketplaces, crowded with “commoners” trying to go about their business.
Christophe Beck’s score is just as energetic and enthusiastic as Nimona, and deftly propels these increasingly chaotic events.
Everything works here … a statement I don’t make lightly.
Check it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment