The Secret of NIMH is usually praised as a classic, a masterpiece, and the best work of Don Bluth. I enjoy The Land Before Time, another movie by him, so naturally I had quite high expectations for this movie. However, it was a big disappointment.
Right from the beginning, the story has shown how silly it is. Somehow, the movie's heroine is willing to risk the safety of her three children, and waste a lot of time doing all kinds of dangerous errands just because 'the air is bad' for her fourth child. Why not just find a warm blanket, wrap him up and run? With all those people around, they could even carry his bed with him on it. That whole deal is clearly just a poor excuse to get the story going.
And then things got worse. Characters just keep appearing out of nowhere with dim intentions and unexplained relations. What is the relationship between the Great Owl and the rats? What is the rats' plan exactly? What does the villain really want? How does NIHM know about their hideout? And what's so special about NIHM if normal mice like Mrs Brisby can do what those rats and mice from NIHM do anyway? Questions after questions about the plot keep popping up but never get answered.
Finally comes the horrible ending which was just a total deus ex machina. The rats, who before that point were just intelligent animals that relied on technology, somehow managed to create magical artifacts, which the heroine was given for some unknown reasons, and then used to save the day. The end. An utterly terrible and lazy excuse of a plot.
The animation, despite being quite good for its time, especially with the special effects, is still not really satisfying for me due to the simple and unimaginative backgrounds. And the sound editing is just terrible compared to Disney movies of the same period.
To sum up, this movie may be good for the 1980s thanks to having a more complex plot than most other animated movies at the time, but judging from today's point of view, it's a very flawed and forgettable product.
Right from the beginning, the story has shown how silly it is. Somehow, the movie's heroine is willing to risk the safety of her three children, and waste a lot of time doing all kinds of dangerous errands just because 'the air is bad' for her fourth child. Why not just find a warm blanket, wrap him up and run? With all those people around, they could even carry his bed with him on it. That whole deal is clearly just a poor excuse to get the story going.
And then things got worse. Characters just keep appearing out of nowhere with dim intentions and unexplained relations. What is the relationship between the Great Owl and the rats? What is the rats' plan exactly? What does the villain really want? How does NIHM know about their hideout? And what's so special about NIHM if normal mice like Mrs Brisby can do what those rats and mice from NIHM do anyway? Questions after questions about the plot keep popping up but never get answered.
Finally comes the horrible ending which was just a total deus ex machina. The rats, who before that point were just intelligent animals that relied on technology, somehow managed to create magical artifacts, which the heroine was given for some unknown reasons, and then used to save the day. The end. An utterly terrible and lazy excuse of a plot.
The animation, despite being quite good for its time, especially with the special effects, is still not really satisfying for me due to the simple and unimaginative backgrounds. And the sound editing is just terrible compared to Disney movies of the same period.
To sum up, this movie may be good for the 1980s thanks to having a more complex plot than most other animated movies at the time, but judging from today's point of view, it's a very flawed and forgettable product.