"Nimona" was, first, a graphic novel that I read in 2017. It was one of the most unusual graphic novels I read that year - and that's saying something. It was also the funniest, and amongst the most dramatic. The movie got good reviews from the critics (94% with 87 reviews as of 2023-08-09), so I was very interested to see it. Unfortunately, familiarity with the source material was a bit damaging to my viewing.

The movie starts with Ballister Boldheart (voiced by Riz Ahmed) and his boyfriend Ambrosius Goldenloin (voiced by Eugene Lee Yang) about to graduate in the "Night to Knight Knights" in a slightly futuristic world that also seems somewhat medieval (what with having knights and the occasional castle rampart). But the night goes horribly wrong through no fault of Boldheart's, and he ends up on the run. As an outlaw, he's involuntarily joined by a weird young woman named "Nimona" (Chloë Grace Moretz) who insists she's going to be his sidekick and they should go destroy stuff. He can't manage to get rid of her, but eventually her weird behaviour and skills start to grow on him as he tries to prove his own innocence.

Before I talk about the changes between the source material and movie, let's just talk about the movie. The artwork is good: colourful and appealing. The dialogue is absolutely full to the brim with snark and snappy comments. Which are very funny, but the incredibly abrupt tonal shifts from snark to pathos and back to snark was occasionally whiplash-inducing. In the end, we have a fairly enjoyable movie about friendship and the need for change - both as individuals and as a society.

Now let's talk about the changes from the source material. First, the artwork is much cleaner, but stays reasonably true to the style of the characters shown in the graphic novel. But our main character's name (umm, the other main character, not "Nimona") was originally "Ballister Blackheart," and we met him (in the graphic novel) after the event that made him an outlaw, when he was first meeting Nimona. He was already a wanted criminal, being hunted by Goldenloin. The reader doesn't know he's innocent, or even what he's accused of. Nor did we know that Goldenloin had been his boyfriend. All we can see is he's not a very enthusiastic bad guy, in contrast to Nimona's strong destructive impulses. So we learn these things slowly as they unfold in the backstory - along with Nimona's backstory. I think this was a far better construction, and it makes the story much more about not judging a book by its cover - because we have to find out who Blackheart is as well as Nimona, and neither of them are what they seem. In the movie we already know what Boldheart is about.

Another important change between the graphic novel and the movie came in the management of the jokes. I think the original author (ND Stevenson) managed the shifting tone (comedy mixed with dark back-stories for both our characters) better. I think the way you perceive a graphic novel also makes it easier to change emotional gears quickly as your eyes bounce from panel to panel. If you've read my review of the graphic novel you'll know I didn't love the artwork, but despite that I think it's a really great piece of work. Sadly, they lost some of that potential on the way to the screen.