TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Mrbrown43 Once upon a time there was a man named Don Bluth, who worked for Disney animating movies like The fox and the hound (1981) and Sleeping Beauty (1959) however due to disagreements with how the studio was being run he would leave the studio in 1979 along with 9 ex Disney animators to create Don Bluth Productions. In 1982 The Secret of NIMH released to critical acclaim but mediocre book office returns (something of a running theme when it comes to Don Bluth's work) The Secret of NIMH marked the start of a dual of wits between the Disney and Don Bluth productions that would end in 2007 with Disney winning and Don Bluth leaving tradition animation and studio life for good. He would start up an indiegogo in 2015 to restart his career creating a dragon's lair movie which I presume is still being worked on today. So let's look at the movie that started it all.The Secret of NIMH (based off the Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH) starts with the recently widowed Mrs Brisby (Elizabeth Hartman) trying to get medicine for her sick son Timmy (Ian Fried) however when moving day (the day when the animals move out of the fields before the farmer begins harvesting the crops) comes earlier than expected Mrs Brisby has to seek out the help of the rats of NIMH to help her move house before moving day. The story at first glance appears to be a very simple "save my sick child" sort of thing but becomes something more with the idea of evolution and changing societal constructs inter cut with the mystical element of magic, there is a great atmosphere of wonder and discovery about the film that makes it a joy to watch for children and adults. The film is surprisingly violent (a stable of Don Bluth's early work however) with blood and death being shown for all to see, while nothing that would have incurred anything more than a PG rating it does stand out from Disney's less gory alternative.The animation too is fantastic the backgrounds are district and beautiful to behold, there is also some slightly disturbing elements to this movie (again nothing worse than a PG rating) regarding the animation (the spider and the majority of the third act comes to mind) but again it looks great. The use of lighting regarding the mystical figure of the film like Nicodemus (Derek Jacobi) helps create that sense of wonder and intrigue. The characters themselves are voice acted extremely well and animated very well; Derek Jacobi's voice acting lends further credence to the magical air around him. You feel in constant awe of him and he always grabs your attention. The character I would like to focus on regarding animation is Auntie Shrew (Hermione Baddeley), the way she moves makes her appear like she is always in a huff and it just makes me laugh whenever she is on screen. The way she moves is just hilarious to me.The Secret of NIMH is a wonderfully creative film, a true family movie that puts other children's films to shame.

datautisticgamer-74853 I'm not going to bother with what CULT as an acronym means. As some background, this film was pitched shortly after Don Bluth left Disney in 1979 over production values in The Fox and The Hound. As a first film for an animation studio, the Disney-esque art style and story really blew me away when I saw it on TV. The animation has some Disney mojo mixed in with subtle originality, and quite a few times I went "Whoa" at how well done the effects were, such as colored light flashes. The characters, while being worth our eyes, are actually not highly memorable, and the cast to a modern person would seem incredibly obscure (despite how their performances are amazing). The story presents a lot of darkness and mystery, with anxiety or intrigue in an absolute majority of the frames. 15 years after having left our childhood memories with Tom and Jerry, Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer makes the wise decision to distribute this film (but oh God no they made a sequel), and not long after it lost popularity, CULT grew. See it should you consider it, because for the most part, it deserves CULT.

WakenPayne The reason why I sat down and watched this is because I have never seen a Don Bluth movie and I heard his 80's films were back then the equivalent to what Pixar is now. I decided to sit down and watch this and while I did very much enjoy this movie - I thought it isn't really as good as everybody is building it up to be but at the movie was pretty good.The plot is that a mouse who lives in a cornfield named Mrs Brisby is trying to help treat her son's pneumonia and through many different circumstances arising like the farmer plowing the cornfield and the mice stopping it before it reaches him she manages to find a society of rats who intellectually operate on the same (if not similar) level to human beings, which her late husband saved.Onto what I enjoyed. I really enjoyed the fact that instead of being pretty much an average everyday animated movie - This challenges kids in the way that there are some scenes that may frighten them along with presenting them with a couple of interesting ideas. I think the animation is superb, the voice acting is pretty good and the characters are likable in their own right.I guess my biggest complaint with the movie is Jeremy. I didn't find him annoying or anything but I felt that he didn't serve that much relevance to the plot. All I saw this character do in the movie that served the plot is take Mrs Brisby to The Great Owl and the rats of NIMH, That's it.So I guess if you like Don Bluth or want to watch a children's film that is just as entertaining to kids as it is to adults then this movie is certainly a must-watch. Just be sure to have some expectations in check, I mean this isn't for younger kids. Based on this, even though I didn't like this movie as much as others, I will watch some other Don Bluth movies in the future.

MissSimonetta The Secret of NIMH (1982) is an 80s animated film with the sensibility of an early Disney feature. Produced during the darkest age of animation to date where selling toys was a greater priority than artistry or storytelling, NIMH was a rebel with its beauty and darkness.Never once does it pander to children by painting the world as a rosy place. Like Disney's first features, it evokes terror just as often as it does wonder. Mrs. Brisby might just be the greatest female character in all of American animation. She is no crooning ingénue nor a hard-nosed warrior, but a mother who's willing to face the worst dangers imaginable to save the life of her child. Her struggle is truly powerful.The animation and music also deserve praise. It's hard to tell that this was a low budget project, so fluid is the animation. Jerry Goldsmith's score is a perfect match for the dark yet hopeful tone of the film.I'm not the biggest fan of much of Don Bluth's later work, but this movie never fails to astound me. It's his magnum opus most certainly. In many ways, this is a precursor to the animation renaissance that would flourish from the late 80s and into the 90s. It deserves more attention than it has been given, that's for sure.