Young moviegoers have had a real break this summer with an abundance of movies aimed for their eyes, and one of the best and also most novel is here to entertain without pain and with much pleasure.
It's The Secret of NIMH, a full-length animated feature that Don Bluth and his colleagues have been working on for the past 2 1/2 years. It is worth the wait, and certainly the effort and creativity that have gone into the film are apparent to audiences at the same time they try to figure out how it's done.
This is animation in the classic style created and used by Walt Disney in his early films. Bluth has resurrected those techniques that had slipped into obscurity because of their expense, and has added his own special effects through the orchestration of colour and the xerography process. Bluth was a Disney animator until 1979 when he felt that studio was reneging on a track record that had made it the foremost in Hollywood. So he led a revolt of other Disney animators, formed a production company working out of his garage and then recruited skilled animators that were trained to professional levels.
All this preparation and experience shows in every frame of The Secret of NIMH, a surprising success drawn with love, affection and a fond remembrance of things past.
Basically it's the story of Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse trying to save her sick son and also [text garbled] family lives in a concrete block lying directly in the path of an unsuspecting farm tractor. She become the adorable heroine of the movie as she goes through a series of harrowing adventures before Bluth and friends create a happy ending.
Husband Jonathan Frisby was among the animals used in an experimental laboratory called NIMH. The injections given to him and a group of rats made them smart, able to think and read. The movie tells us the story in flashback and narration, focussing on the present dangers and challenges facing Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH.
This sounds like thin material but believe me, it isn't long into the film before one realizes the delightful characters and the charming story with its humanitarian qualities have captured both eye and heart.
Those with a quick ear as well should be able to identify the voices used by the bird and animal characters -- Derek Jacobi, John Carradine, Dom DeLuise, Hermione Baddeley among them. They're all in The Secret of NIMH, a captivating motion picture delight.