It is August and we have dubbed this month….Animated August! As you could probably guess, we will be focusing on animated films! We are both incredibly excited for this because animated films have always been and will always be favorites of ours. We love them, and we feel that there is a big misconception out there that animated films are…for children??

Uuuuummm….NO. We could not disagree more with that rhetoric! Animated films are wonderful, and they are for everyone and anyone! We potatoes are here to let all of you know, that enjoying animated films, and playing a drinking game to them is super fun and hurts no one!

So without further ado, let us introduce the new, wonderful film that we will be taking a look at today! Netflix’s new 2023 animated film, “Nimona.” We absolutely adore this movie in every possible way! It is one of the best animated films that Netflix has come out with! The animation is very stylized, beautiful and incredibly fun! The story is wonderful, and made us cry multiple times.

A few trigger warnings before we get into our snap shot of the film, there is violence, scapegoating, death, and more. This movie is perfectly safe for children and people of all ages! But it does have some more complex themes and it is important to be aware of that before going in.

We will do everything we can to not give too many spoilers in this review but there are likely to be some, so please take that into consideration and read cautiously. Let’s get started!

Our movie begins with a voice over, and some medieval inspired animation and ancient scrolls giving us the backstory of the much beloved and mighty Gloreth! The woman who banished monsters from the kingdom and kept them at bay by building a wall and decreeing noble families to train knights from their blood line to protect the kingdom hence forth!

1000 years to present day, we get more voice over, but from different people, two people hosting a kind of live show about the knight’s knighting ceremony. While they are talking, the camera pans around the city behind the walls. The technology has definitely improved, but there is still a strong medieval vibe as well as a large statue of Gloreth herself pointing her sword outward and looking fierce!

This is where we first get a glimpse of one of our main characters, Ballister (Riz Ahmed)! Tradition is being cast aside for this knighting ceremony…and gasp…a commoner might be knighted! Ballister is this said commoner. He has worked incredibly hard, clawing his way up through the ranks of the Institute to become their best knight and graduating top of his class!

But…he is not of noble blood…which causes some concern for people…Why? We really don’t know! We think anyone can be anything they want to be no matter where they come from…do we understand that this is not the way the world works…sigh. Unfortunately yes.

Some people truly do have more opportunities than others just by their birth. It goes deeper and further than that, but it is fact of life. Especially where we potatoes live. The disparities are getting wider and wider and nothing is being done about it. But we digress!

Ballister (Riz Ahmed) is sitting above the stadium looking down at where the ceremony will be taking place. He is unsure, and nervous. It seems like his knighthood could go either way…50/50 chance.

Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang)…yes that is his name and we love it! Anyways! Ambrosius Goldenloin is a direct descendent of the revered Gloreth, and comes across as an egotistical, stereotypical knight…so color us delightfully surprised when he shows up to give Ballister a pep talk and to hold his hand.

They are a couple and an adorable one! We were wonderfully surprised by it, and like we have said in many previous reviews, we love us some solid representation!

Ambrosius reassures Ballister and soon after, we see them in the locker rooms getting their Knight’s gear on. We get the pleasure of meeting an obnoxious character, Thoddeus Sureblade (Beck Bennett) who bullies Ballister because Ballister is not of noble blood.

There is always that person… sigh. Ballister brushes off Todd’s nonsense. The squire (Julio Torres) comes up to Ballister to give him his sword but he seems anxious about it. He tries to talk to Ballister, and pulls out his phone…Todd takes this to mean that he must want a picture with Ballister!

This is of course ridiculous because Ballister is not a real knight! The whole locker room is interrupted by the arrival of The Director (Frances Conroy) who runs the Institute! The squire rushes out of the room wheeling the sword rack along with him.

The Knights all line up, standing tall for the Director to walk between them. She is dressed in classic medieval clothing, walking with a stiff posture and holding a scepter of some kind.

She stops to talk to Ballister and compliment him. Ambrosius teases Ballister calling him a teacher’s pet as they mount their horses to step out into the packed stadium. We want to remind you that in this world their technology is advanced but with a heavy Medieval theme to everything. The knights are wearing full armor and the weapons of choice are technologically advanced medieval weaponry. 

This stadium has advanced technology with a jumbotron and large platform in the center where the Queen stands ready to Knight new graduates of the Institute. The new graduates reach the platform and dismount from their horses. Ambrosius walks up the steps towards the Queen and gets knighted!

Ballister is up next, and he nervously approaches. He stands in front of the Queen, she smiles at him and says, “I’ve been looking forward to this moment.”

He kneels and the Queen tells the stadium that, “Starting today, any of you should be able to hold the sword, if you want it! If you earn it!” She speaks a little more about Ballister, takes his sword and knights him: Ballister Boldheart!

The crowd takes a moment to process, and then goes wild! Ballister is relieved and thrilled. She hands him back his sword and as he is holding it, the pommel opens up, revealing a horrible laser weapon! It shoots right into the Queen killing her!

Shocked and confused Ballister tries to aim the laser elsewhere shooting down the stadiums jumbotron at the top. Ambrosius, reacting to the chaos, cuts off Ballister’s sword arm, but not before the damage is all done!

The mega screens fall crashing into the ground and giving Ballister the chance to get away!

Cut to black, and we get a small voice over from the same voice we heard at the beginning of the film…leading a scene with a young red-headed girl using red spray paint to deface a poster that says “Kingdom” to “King-Dumb”.

She turns with a chuckle and approaches a public televised kiosk with Ballister’s face all over it. The people have declared him a vile villain, to which this young teenage girl grins, places her head phones over her ears, and says, “He’s perfect.”

Fade to black with the name of the film fading on to screen, NIMONA.

We then cut to Ballister making himself some kind of mechanical arm. We love the shout out to Army of Darkness! All he needs is a boom-stick to go along with his look!

Moving forward, he is testing out the arm he has made and affixed to himself when he hears a knock on the door to the abandoned building that he is inhabiting.

The knocking become more intense and more insistent as he walks towards the door. He opens it and sees nothing! Confused he turns around, and there is Nimona (Chloe Grace Moretz)!

Just like the rest of the kingdom, Nimona is under the impression that Ballister killed the Queen on purpose and is an evil Villain! She wishes to be his sidekick! Of course, Ballister did not kill the Queen! He was framed, but Nimona really wants him to be a villain because of the classist, racist, and generally antiquated way that the society that they live in is.

The Queen was actually trying to make changes which, as anyone and everyone knows…will always freak people out. There are many that think that things should go backwards, or stay the same.

The kingdom in this story parallels our own society in a lot of ways. There is definitely an outdated fear of change. Now, not all change is good…but not all change is bad either. To make progress means to change. To do better means to change. To GROW means to change. We cannot avoid change as much as we may want to. It is a fact of life, and of society.

Change is necessary for things to improve. We would not have unions or basic civil rights among many other things! We would not have the diversity that we do now if nothing had ever changed and there is still so much change that is needed in a myriad of ways…so going backwards or remaining stagnant is, in our opinion, foolish and shortsighted. But we digress!

Nimona explores Ballisters “Evil Lair” while Ballister tries to get her to leave. Nimona is determined to be his sidekick, and will not take no for an answer!

Ballister manages to convince her that he is not a villain and Nimona is extremely disappointed. This confuses Ballister, but he is determined to prove his innocence. Nimona is still willing to work with him…but Ballister does not think he needs her.

Ballister storms out of their “lair” and immediately gets arrested! Thrown into a prison cell with his mechanical arm taken from him, Ballister turns and sees The Director outside his cell! He tries to convince her that he is innocent.

The Director does not listen to him at all, and leaves him there. Nimona then pops up in his cell. Ballister is flummoxed! Nimona says, “How did I know this was gonna happen? Because once everyone sees you as a villain, that’s what you are. They only see you one way, no matter how hard you try.”

Nimona then teases him, and returns his mechanical arm to him. Nimona gets him out of the cell, and they both start leaving the premises. Nimona purposely breaking everything she can along the way, of course!

Their jailbreak is discovered and suddenly, many knights are after them! They are being chased and attacked as they are trying to escape! They manage to make it safely into a broom closet, but they are cornered and outnumbered! Nimona tells Ballister that he needs to, “Promise me that you won’t freak out!”

Ballister is hesitant to make any promises, but things are desperate and he does so under duress! His jaw drops as he stares at Nimona…who has suddenly changed into a large pink rhinoceros!

Nimona is a shapeshifter! She is a magical being that can shapeshift into anything and everything! She is amazing! She changes her shape and species as much as she needs to in order to get them away from the guards and free!

Ballister passes out, and wakes up back at the “Lair.” He is unsure as Nimona cooks up some food. She turns around and sees that he is awake. She walks over and offers him the food she made.

Nimona has also taken it upon herself to straighten up and add some flair to their lair while he was out. Ballister doesn’t remember everything that happened immediately…but once he does, he becomes afraid of Nimona. He says, “You’re not human.” He starts pawing at his waist for his sword.

Nimona is unimpressed and angry. Ballister tells her that she is a “monster.” Nimona tells him to not call her that and he asks her, “What are you?”

“I’m Nimona.”

Ballister is not satisfied with this answer, “People don’t just turn into things.”

“I do.”

We are going wrap it up here, as we do not want to give away any more of this wonderful film! The film progresses with Ballister and Nimona trying to prove his innocence and figure out who really killed the Queen. Ballister struggles with “what” Nimona is, but Ballister grows and begins to see Nimona as a person. Nimona is an absolute riot! She is hilarious, fun, and awesome in every way. This film touches on a lot of triggering things for us potatoes. One of the biggest ones being scapegoating. We are very familiar with scapegoating and it was painful to see how badly scapegoated Nimona is.

What is scapegoating? Scapegoating is a family, society, or group of people singling out either a specific group of people or an individual person and blaming them for all of their difficulties and hardships in life.

It gives them a target. Someone to punish, someone to blame, and someone to bully, someone to use and abuse while justifying the abuse because they blame the scapegoat for it. It is a truly horrible experience.

This may be a sensitive subject for some, but it is true. A good example of scapegoating on a societal level would be Eve in the creation story and Pandora from the Pandora’s Box story. Many men have been scapegoating, dehumanizing and abusing women for an incredibly long time, and they love to use those stories as the basis of justification for their abuse. Our patriarchal society is based off of scapegoating women and men not being held accountable for their behavior. This is of course very broad, (We KNOW, not ALL men) but it reflects some of what Nimona deals with. The entire kingdom sees her as a villain, and the main source of all their problems.

This is just ONE example. There are MANY, and the term scapegoating is used more often within a toxic and abusive family context. But we felt that it was worth mentioning that it can be even bigger than that, especially since Nimona is considered a “villain” by ALL simply for being who she is.

We relate strongly to Nimona, and could not be more impressed with her strength of person. She is strong, hilarious, kind, and incredibly unique. She should be embraced fully for all of her amazingness…but she is not. Instead she is maligned, abused, shunned, and more.

Nimona is an excellent role model as well. We do not want to give away too much of the film, but there is so much more to discuss with Nimona alone that we related so strongly to. A couple of lines that Nimona says made us cry incredibly hard because of how close it hit to home, “I don’t know what’s scarier. The fact that everyone in this kingdom wants to run a sword through my heart…or that sometimes…I just wanna let ‘em.”

We cried so hard during this scene. It is so heart wrenching, sad, and so, so true if you have ever experienced scapegoating. It is exhausting and it is so difficult, impossible really, to not internalize the abusive messaging you are receiving.

Even Nimona is not impervious to this, so try to be kind and gentle with yourself. It is so incredibly difficult. Healing is possible and if therapy is accessible to you, we potatoes highly recommend it. Ballister even plays into this somewhat with his own biases, and prejudices. Ballister does grow, but it is a process for him.

Ballister has his own things that he is contending with as well, the classism that would prefer that he never be a knight. His fixation on extrinsic as opposed to intrinsic validation. Nimona helps him a lot with this. She has had to learn the hard way to seek validation within herself, whereas Ballister has always sought it outside of himself.

So when he is labeled a “villain” this is incredibly difficult for him. He has worked so hard to earn the title of “hero.” He has built his whole identity around that, especially considering that he is trying to be the first commoner to be knighted in the realm since Gloreth established the knighthood. Ballister learns that the only person that can really give you the validation, acceptance, and the love that you need…is yourself. This does not mean that we cannot gain love, or accept love and validation from others or that we do not need love or validation from others! But at the end of the day it will always be up to you.

Extrinsic validation will only get you so far. Learning to validate yourself on an intrinsic level is so vital to our overall well-being. Of course, this is far easier said than done, but with hard work and the help of a qualified mental health professional, getting there is possible. Nimona helps Ballister so much just with her example. We all have so much that we can learn from Nimona.

There is so much more to discuss with this film, from the classic political fearmongering to control the populace, the dystopian world disguised as a utopia, the police state of the Kingdom, and a lot of issues with classism. There is also more to discuss from a mental health standpoint. What is trust? How is it earned, and who truly deserves your trust? What does it mean to be a safe person? What does a safe person look like?

So pour yourself a bowl of “Kwispy’s” cereal and grab a tasty drink! This movie is so wonderful, genuine and a thought provoking masterpiece. In our opinions, it is the best film that Netflix has come out with…ever! The film is beautifully animated, it is colorful, vibrant, engaging and visually stunning! It asks important questions, and is far deeper than meets the eye. We could not love this film more! We HIGHLY recommend watching Nimona! Cheers to Nimona and her incredible strength of person and cheers to you!

If you are someone that loves heartfelt, heart-wrenching, thoughtful, unique, and interesting films with fantastic characters and wonderful world building than this is the movie for you!

We give this movie a SOLID 5 Shapeshifter cocktails out of 5!

The Nimona Drinking Game

Take a sip anytime:

1.     Nimona has an evil grin on her face

2.     Nimona shapeshifts

3.     Nimona talks about killing or murder

4.     Nimona mentions breaking stuff or actually does break stuff

5.     Nimona is sweet or kind

6.     Nimona makes you laugh

7.     Nimona says “Boss”

8.     Thodd is an idiot, a bully, or both

9.     Ballister gives puppy eyes or widens his eyes

10.  Ballister claims his innocence

11.  Anyone says "Monster"

12.  Anyone says "Sidekick"

13.  Anyone says "Goldenloin"

14.  Anyone says "Gloreth"

15.  Anyone says "Hero"

16. Anyone says "Villain"

What did you think?? Did you like the movie? Did you hate it!? What movies do you think should we watch?! Any and all thoughts are welcome! Let us know here in the comments and always remember to be safe and drink responsibly!