The Secret of NIMH (1982)

In the early '80s a group of Disney animators, headed by Don Bluth, decided to break away from the Disney studio. The Secret of NIMH was the first film they made. Based on a semi-classic children's book entitled "Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien, the film emerges as a decent little animated feature. The story is a bit on the sombre side - probably a bit too serious and complex for really young viewers - but the animation is of a superb quality and the characters are very nicely voiced.

Field mouse Mrs Brisby needs to move her family from their home in a farmer's field, as it is almost time for the farmer to gather his crop with the combine harvester. Inevitably the Brisby home would be destroyed and anyone in it killed during the gathering of the crop. Unfortunately, one of her children, Timmy, is suffering from pneumonia and couldn't possible survive the move. Mrs Brisby is advised to contact the rats of NIMH, a group of hyper-intelligent rodents, to ask for their help. Apparently, her late husband Jonathan was a close friend of the rats and they held him in such high regard that they will do anything to help a member of the Brisby clan.

The story is told mainly through talk, with occasional bursts of action. As already pointed out, this means the film doesn't really lend itself to a very young audience. But older kids, especially those who are willing to listen with the appropriate degree of attention, will find the story interesting. There are other plus points - Jerry Goldsmith's rousing score; Dom DeLuise's amusing vocals as an accident-prone bird; and some very well-conceived "baddies" in the shape of rat conspirator Jenner and savage farm-cat Dragon. The Secret of NIMH is a moderately successful film - no masterpiece, true enough, and not really a serious challenger to the Disney dominance over the genre, but definitely a film that every child should see at least once.

Fmovies: See this movie. It has some of the most intense sequences in an animated film that I've ever seen. I remember this one from way back and I remember watching it every chance I had. And who can forget that one line, "Take what you can.... when you can!"

I turned on Nickelodeon the other day and was disgusted with "Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue". Among the many things was the pee-poor animation. So it's not even worth mentioning.

The original "The Secret of NIMH" remains to this day, my favorite animated feature. Animation-wise, it outshines even Disney's finest features of old: Bambi and Snow White; and of new: Mulan and Beauty and the Beast, all of which are favorites of mine. If the story of Mrs. Brisby, a widowed fieldmouse with four children to rear alone and the heroism she displays throughout the movie isn't enough to touch certain people, they should watch it if only to marvel at the miraculous use of color and dexterity. My favorite scene is when the farm cat is chasing Mrs. Brisby and they end up falling into the water beneath a windmill. But the whole movie has a kind of visual "theme" of glowing, sparkling mysticism, which fits into the storyline of power, beauty, courage, the abuse of power, and good and evil. It was rated G, but I feel that because of the amount of violence and animated bloodshed, and because of a very frightening scene involving a sinkhole, it should have been rated PG. That means it's not a kiddie kind of cartoon!!!

The Secret of NIMH fmovies. I voted a 10 on this movie mostly for its hauntingly breath-taking original musical by Jerry Goldsmith. Surely this film's score has to be some of his very best work.

The awe-inspiring wisdoms of Nicodemus and The Great Owl, the comic reliefs of Mr. Ages, Jeremy and Auntie Shrew, the fascinating struggle between good and evil (Justin and Jenner), and of course the unmatchable greatness of the Brisby family name make this film one of the best animated movies ever.

The movie's ending climax is powerful and gorgeous. You are left utterly stunned. Mrs. Brisby proves once again that she is just as brave and capable as her husband, if not more so, by never giving up hope and eventually succeeding in keeping her family safe.

1st watched 5/13/2001 - 8 out of 10 (Dir-Don Bluth): Complicated story for kids, but extremely well-done animated tale of a group of rats who are experimented on by NIMH(National Instiute for Mental Health) and become smart. They escape and live in an underground existence stealing electricity from a farmer. The plan is to generate their own electricity and be able to move to a safer locale, but we don't exactly know how this is going to happen. Dom Deluise has a humorous role as a clumsy love-lorned crow to keep the seriousness of the story at bay. This movie is excellent from beginning to end and deserved more recognition than it got(probably because it's not Disney), but launched a series of Bluth animated movies to give animated movie fans an alternative to Disney.

This film has more soul than most animated films. The film music is excellent, and honestly is the shining jewel of the movie. The art work is excellent for the time period: and no computers used! The backgrounds have excellent detail: they could honestly be used as great works of art on their own merit. The voices are excellent and very fitting for the characters. The story line is very well done: while not lacking in action at any time, it's also not like most modern films that are constantly "in your face" with fast-moving activity. The facial expressions are outstanding! Too bad Don Bluth didn't do more films! The mud in certain scenes was very well done. The story has great struggle and good-versus-evil appeal to it. The music is actually great for an animated film: no catchy or cheeky pop music at all, but the music score seems to always be doing something. Many times it does such a good job at painting the mental picture of certain scenes that if you were to listen to the score by itself after seeing the movie, you could trace the story line by heart. Even the musical prototype for the main theme, "Flying Dreams" (or whatever) was done so well that it makes one wonder who wrote and performed the original demo (first song of the credits). Excellent movie in all aspects, even if it seems "old school" to some :)