Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
 Mike Toole  rates it:    

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland has a pedigree that makes it seem like a surefire winner. It was produced in the mid-80s by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, back when they had lots of money to burn ($35 million, to be exact. Yow!). It features major western talents like Ray Bradbury (screen concept), Jean "Moebius" Giraud (concept art), and future mainstream film director Chris Columbus (screenplay) behind the scenes. Its animation staff is entirely Japanese, and features direction from the talented but largely unknown Masami Hata, who wrote and directed the remarkable and all-but-forgotten Sea Prince & the Fire Child, not to mention fine animation work by the likes of Yadamon! creator Fumio Iida and production by Yutaka Fujioka, the man who masterminded virtually all of the great east-west co-productions of the 80s like Sherlock Hound, Ulysses 31, and Mighty Orbots. (Orbots creator Barry Glasser also produced this film.) Even its early production woes, involving pre-production work by Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki (the famous duo left before animation started due to creative differences with Fujioka and company) and a pair of forgotten pilot reels directed by Yoshifumi Kondo and Osamu Dezaki, are amazing. The question is: what happened?

What happened to Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland? With such a richness of talent behind it, why did it only limp to US release in 1992, four years after it was completed and released in Japan? Why did it quietly go out of print on video, forgotten for more than ten years? Why did Funimation release it to DVD in 2004, but bury it so completely that it's not mentioned anywhere on their site and I wasn't aware of its release until just last week? Don't get me wrong-- Little Nemo is not a great film, not one of the best of its age, for reasons I'll explain in a moment. But it is a very interesting film, and I don't believe something this interesting should be ignored by anime fans.

So let's take a closer look at Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (the opening credits simply call it Little Nemo), the anime feature film based on the works of early 20th century animator and cartoonist Winsor McKay. When he reviewed this film in 1992, Roger Ebert described it as "persistently watchable on the visual level." Ebert specified "visual" because, plotwise, there's little worth remembering about Little Nemo. There are rudiments of a story-- something about the kingdom of nightmares trying to overrun peaceful Slumberland after protagonist Nemo, quite possibly the least interesting screen hero I've ever seen, makes a mistake and lets the goblins in. But most of Nemo's pleasures are strictly visual-- amazing scenes of flight, as Nemo's trademark sturdy wooden bed soars through his dreams, the dazzling scenery of Slumberland, which looks like it sprang right out of Moebius' head and onto celluloid, and animation that makes the lackluster Disney films of the era-- Oliver and Company, I'm looking your way-- seem crude and foolish in comparison.


Little Nemo's visual delights are augmented by a fine soundtrack, featuring booming, bombastic orchestral music by the London Symphony Orchestra and songs penned by the legendary Richard and Robert Sherman, who wrote songs for Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. Happily, most of Nemo's songs aren't of the tedious, faux-musical breed-- they're gentle background music, usually sung by Melissa Manchester. The cast isn't terribly illustrious, but that's a good thing-- like many good animated films, Nemo ignores the temptation of stunt-casting big celebrities who suck at voice acting. The most famous person in the film is Mickey Rooney, and he's the kind of actor who can turn in a funny, magnetic performance effortlessly. The cast also includes anime favorites like Sherry Lynn and Michael McConnohie.

Even the DVD production is well above average for a second-tier kiddie film. Little Nemo is presented in widescreen, with a Dolby 5.1 audio mix, and features several simple extras that will keep kids entertained, like isolated song tracks and a Nemo sing-along. Heck, if you were observant enough to buy this stupid DVD last year, you could've gone to Chuck E. Cheese's, because a coupon for 25 free game tokens is enclosed. The only significant omissions are those Kondo and Dezaki pilot films, which were actually included on the Japanese laserdisc release some years back. Oh, well-- can't have everything, I guess.


So, given all that, what's so bad about Nemo? Well, in short, it's, er, Nemo. The character is completely flat and static; he gets in a tiny bit of trouble, falls asleep, causes some mayhem in Slumberland despite a hero's welcome (King Morpheus wants him to become his heir and playmate to his daughter, Princess Camille), teams up with the mischiveous Flip (Rooney, whose portly, nattily dressed character is just a few shades of brown away from being the Kingfisher-- kind of weird in this day and age), gets Slumberland invaded, and then proceeds to save the day. He may as well have been a sack of pickles, or an inanimate carbon rod. He never, ever does anything the least bit unexpected. Things aren't helped so much by the presence of Icarus, Nemo's pet flying squirrel, who wears an old-time flight cap and chatters in the Frank Welker voice, despite actually being voiced by Danny Mann. You'll get the feeling that Icarus was just kind of tacked on because, hey, all the children's movies have to have an animal mascot, right?

So in the end, Little Nemo is a visually sumptuous movie that doesn't quite live up to its potential. Still, it's a fine way to pass 100 minutes, and while it doesn't compare to McKay's amazing, eye-popping comics, it's at least as entertaining as the Tom Petty animated video "Running Down a Dream," which also draws inspiration from McKay's work. It's a sin and a shame that Funimation brushed this movie under the mat, but now you know-- and with the movie generally going for between ten and fifteen dollars, there's no reason to resist, especially if you have children who are as easily distracted as I am.

Added:  Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Related Link:  Funimation
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