Hello! Welcome to Movies for Teens, where I, Ms. Kate, review movies that are perfect for teens. As the inaugural post of this series, I was thinking of going back to a classic that I grew up watching. I also enjoyed the alliteration of “mice” and “March,” so without further ado, we will be watching Don Bluth’s “The Secret of NIMH.”

The Secret of NIMH is the animated adaptation of the 1970’s book by Robert C. O’Brien called Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. It is full of a talented voice cast, with Dom DeLuise as the boisterous crow Jeremy, Derek Jacobi as the wise Nicodemus, Elizabeth Hartman as Mrs. Brisby, and a young Will Wheaton who plays Martin (before he boarded onto Star Trek!). Under the direction of Bluth, they bring life to this classic onto the big screen. 

The story follows Mrs. Brisby (the movie version of the name, fun fact, they had to change the protagonist’s last name from Frisby to Brisby because of the toy Frisbees, cool, right?) as she fights to save her family from Moving Day without exposing her sick son to the cold. Moving Day is the term used by the animals who live on the farm, and it is when the plow returns to the fields and breaks the homes the animals have made prior. Mrs. Brisby is in a bad situation when her youngest, Timothy, is sick with pneumonia and cannot be moved. Instructed to speak to the Rats for help, Mrs. Brisby must venture to the unknown to save her loved ones from doom. 

I absolutely loved this movie as a kid, and I still love it now. The plot is suspenseful, causing the viewers to wonder if our protagonist will succeed. The animation is beautiful, especially with the magic Don Bluth added to give some pizazz to the rat’s rosebush metropolis, and the voice cast is superb. 

I highly recommend this movie, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. If you are interested in comparing the book to the movie, click here for the catalog link for Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien. 

To watch the movie on Kanopy, click the link here