Even when I was young, I had a fascination with animated films, although I didn't officially hear or recognize the name of Don Bluth maybe until around the turn of the millennium. I had seen bits of All Dogs Go to Heaven and Rock-a-Doodle towards the end of the twentieth century, but never actually watched them in full until around two decades or so later. I had rarely seen portions of Bluth's first film produced after he went rogue from Disney, The Secret of NIMH, on Nickelodeon in its heyday, and would learn that despite positive reviews, it flopped due to competition with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In honor of Don Bluth's eighty-seventh birthday, I decided to give NIMH a watch on Tubi (free without commercials), and it easily blows all of the director's subsequent films out of the water (at least those I remember seeing in full) even today.
Based on Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, the film opens with the titular widowed field mouse, whose surname was changed to Brisby due to potential trademark infringements with the Frisbee toy (and was probably for the far better), mourning her recently-deceased husband Jonathan and visiting one of his friends, Mr. Ages (nice name, by the way, though since said mouse is elderly, it probably fit him) to get a cure for her son Timothy's pneumonia. En route home, she meets the clumsy crow Jeremy, who helps her escape the guard cat Dragon, pet of the Fitzgibbons family, on whose land she and her family make their home.
Brisby wants to move her residence off the Fitzgibbons property due to the coming of plowing season for the farm family, although her son's illness delayed this. Her neighbor, Auntie Shrew, helps disable the tractor that threatens Brisby's property to buy time. The mouse widow visits the Great Owl, who tells her to visit a rat colony hidden on the farm and beseech the service of its leader Nicodemus. The mystical leader reveals the backstory of his rodent colony stemming from experiments years before at the eponymous National Institute of Mental Health that boosted their intelligence and lifespans.
Following this is a culmination of events including the intention by NIMH to exterminate the escaped rats, a plot by turncoats Jenner and Sullivan to off Nicodemus, and a rainstorm during the climactic battle that follows, with Brisby's abode at stake. Even if it seems to diverge greatly at times from O'Brien's book (at least from what I saw on Wikipedia, but the title character's name change was definitely a sound move), the story is told well, with the dialogue being well-written, never out of place, and fitting for the various characters, human and (mostly) animal alike.
The voice performances are also solid, with Don Bluth's longtime friend, the late Dom DeLuise, lending his comedic talents to Jeremy (as he would for characters in future Bluth productions). Even the acting for the mouse children is very far from irritating (and Brisby's other son, Martin, was voiced by Wil Wheaton, who would go on to semi-stardom in the Star Trek franchise). Jerry Goldsmith's musical score deserves special mention and has a central theme with a vocal version, "Flying Dreams," with female vocals in-film and male during the ending credits. The animation is beautiful as well, and overall, The Secret of NIMH remains to date among Bluth's magna opera.
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The Bottom Line |
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One of Don Bluth's best films. Watch it. |
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