For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.
Don Bluth has proven Isaac Newton right. When Bluth, Gary Goldman, John Pomeroy and other young animators split with the Disney studios in 1979, they went back into the past, back into the golden days of glorious full animation. At the same time, executive producer Ron Miller took the Disney survivors into the future with the hyped-up, electronically tricked-out TRON.
Bluth and friends took with them the desire to film the late Robert C. O'Brien's prize-winning book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which Miller had declined to back for them. They cleared the rights and in less than a year and a half have emerged with a fine example of classical Disney animation. (One hopes the film catches on, not only to encourage more animated films of this quality, but also encourage producers to check out O'Brien's three other novels, particularly his first, The Silver Crown).
For anyone who has grown up with the Disney animated features, THE SECRET OF NIMH will be as welcome as a familiar friend. It employs character animation multiplane camera shots, and most delightful of all, the use of intricately detailed color schemes and shading often resulting in breathtaking backgrounds. What is odd and refreshing is that none of Bluth's techneques are new; they've simply been forgotten in the corner-cutting, cost-conscious reality of filmmaking in the '80s. This reality has led to the two-dimensional Saturday morning TV cartoons and the rotoscoping-crazy Ralph Bakshi.
What's new is a mostly uncompromising storyline, often unnecessarily complicated, unfortunately never fully unites its two separate narratives: the plight of Mrs. Brisby to protect her family and the supra-natural activities of the genetically altered and intelligence enhanced rats, who are facing a crisis of leadership and morality. The two parts of the plot are further separated by a stylistic trait. The Mrs. Brisby/family/Jeremy sequences are associated with light; the rats/owl/Mr. Ages sequences, which amount to the entire fantasy content for which THE SECRET OF NIMH is unique, with darkness.
Bluth never satisfyingly explores the fantasy elements in the film and they are used more like time-out filler between the more conventional "cartoony" animal adventures. Still, the story is integral to the film, unlike the plot content of many classical Disney films. The great Disney films relied on emotional attachment with the characters to enthrall the audience. For all its technical achievement, THE SECRET OF NIMH largely lacks this quality -- we simply don't feel for the characters as much as we should.
Bluth's achievement should not be underestimated or unappreciated; he has broken new, or rather very old, ground and nearly every frame of the film is beautifully drawn, every sequence imaginatively and incisively animated. But what remains to be achieved is that added element of emotional involvement. In THE SECRET OF NIMH, Bluth has touched our senses of humor and wonder, but he hasn't made us feel for his characters, which is, after all, the prime goal of full character animation.