It's difficult for me to describe to you why, exactly, you should see this film. It is, simply and absolutely, a fantastic movie. I would be more specific, but it's all fantastic...the story, the characters, the art, the music, the writing, the acting, the camera angles, the construction, the humor, the suspense, the beginning, middle, and end, it's all...fantastic. I can't seem to figure out whether Don Bluth was a genius for this movie, or everybody else a fool for not making movies like this, or both. And nobody makes movies like this, with the possible exception of a few of the older Disney classics.

Perhaps the best description I can think of for "The Secret of NIMH" is that it's like reading a really good book. By the time it's over, you feel like you've somehow just finished a three- or four-hundred page novel in less than an hour and a half. Anyway that's the feeling I had...but you don't feel like it was rushed at all, and that's the funny part. How do you cram such a beautiful and filled-out story into an hour and a half, and still feel like the movie was just the right length, and moved at just the right tempo? It doesn't make sense, but "The Secret of NIMH" has accomplished just that, and it's a feat that I doubt even the most well-written novel could ever match.

I know I'm being rather vague and melodramatic in this review...but I can't compare this to other movies I've given four-star reviews to. Unlike some of my other favorites, "The Secret of NIMH" did not shock me, it did not surprise me, it did not leave me blinking in disbelief or incredulity. What it did was simply absorb me, through and through, eyes and ears and everything in between. And maybe that's the best kind of story there is.