Netflix animation film “Nimona”, which was released a few days ago, attempts to bring some fresh air of diversity and tolerance to its familiar fantasy story, and it succeeds to some degree. Although it is often predictable in terms of narrative and characterization, the movie is delightful to watch at times as occasionally pulsating with its quirky spirit and style, and I gladly went along with that despite my reservation.

At first, the movie quickly establishes its main background, a little fantasy kingdom which alternatively looks futuristic and medieval. While it has lots of futuristic stuffs such as flying vehicles and fancy digital tablets, this kingdom is also pretty monarchic just like that African fantasy kingdom in “Black Panther” (2018), and we get to know how the kingdom and its commoners have been protected and served by a bunch of noble and prestigious knights led by their monarch.

However, Queen Valerin (voiced by Lorraine Toussaint), the current monarch of the kingdom, decides to bring some significant change to the old order and tradition of her kingdom via a lad named Ballister Boldheart (voiced by Riz Ahmed). Although he is a mere commoner, the queen had lots of faith in Ballister even when he was just a young boy aspiring to be a knight, and he has surely showed that he has indeed the right stuff for being ordained as a new knight by his queen.

Alas, something quite unexpected happens when Ballister is about to become one of his queen’s knights in the middle of a big official ceremony. Somebody assassinates the queen via Ballister’s sword, and Ballister soon finds himself becoming a fugitive pursued by many other knights because he happened to hold the murder weapon at that moment.

In his little secret place, Ballister tries to find any possible way to clear his name and then catch whoever is behind the assassination of the queen, and that is when a quirky girl named Nimona (voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz) enters the picture. She is quite eager to be his sidekick simply because she wants to have some fun and adventure besides having someone to hang around with, and Ballister reluctantly accepts her companionship even though he is still not quite certain about her.

Of course, Nimona turns out to quite more helpful than Ballister thought at first. She is actually a shapeshifter who can transform herself into a various kind of creatures ranging from cat to whale, and this particular skill of hers is surely useful for Ballister when he needs to escape from where he is subsequently incarcerated.

As spending more time with Nimona, Ballister gradually comes to care more about her as a fellow outsider, and the film has a lot of fun from this oddly mismatched duo. Besides her shapeshifting skill, Nimona also has considerable artistic sensibility as your average irrepressible punk girl, and I can easily imagine her having a wild club party time with a certain Spider-Man character in recent animation film “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (2023). Chloë Grace Moretz, a wonderful actress whom some of you may remember for her very violent breakout performance “Kick-Ass” (2011), often excels whenever Nimona becomes quite heedless with her indomitable spirit, and she is particularly good when her character enthusiastically tells a story of hers via her broad but undeniably spirited sketches.

On the opposite, Riz Ahmed, who can be very funny as shown from darkly satiric terrorist comedy film “Four Lions” (2010), complements Moretz’s energetic voice performance with his more restrained voice acting. Although his character often feels too plain and uncharacteristic compared to Moretz’s character, Ahmed brings some earnest seriousness to his role, and it is a shame that the movie does not bring much depth to his character’s personal relationship with one of substantial supporting characters. As observing this, I was surely reminded again of how we have been more comfortable with LGBTQ+ characters during last several years, but I was also rather disappointed because Ballister’s relationship with that supporting character feels perfunctory at best and superficial at worst. After all, the film is based on the graphic novel of the same named by transmasculine and bigender artist ND Stevenson, isn’t it?

Anyway, things get more interesting as a certain secret about Nimona is revealed later in the story. and that accordingly culminates to a dramatic moment between her and Ballister. Although the movie accordingly shifts itself onto a full-action mode around that narrative point, I must confess that I had never imagined that I would see a cross between those Godzilla flicks and Hayao Miyazaki’s great animation film “Princess Mononoke” (1997), and that surely earned some extra point from me.

Overall, “Nimona”, directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, could be better in my trivial opinion, but it is still fairly enjoyable thanks to its distinctive style and spirit at least. I would rather recommend “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse” or recent Pixar Studios animation film “Elemental” (2023) first, but it is another notable animation film of this year, and you may enjoy it especially if you have some free time to spend on it.