"Nico The Unicorn" - - Time To Grow Up

If you watched the above clip you saw two things: A kid unicorn, and a kid Elisha Cuthbert

Pictured: Not Kid Elisha Cuthbert

But in between those two things, you see the heart of "Nico The Unicorn." You see Billy Hastings scribbling in his notepad. He writes out the word "Unicorn" then using those letters he lists different combination until he settles on Nico.

This movie is about being a child. It's about being young and hopeful and at the same time mature and realistic. His father is dead and his leg is busted after a tragic car accident. He's in a new town and his mom is almost always working

But, he has a unicorn!

 . . .that he can't ride because of his busted leg.

After I watched "Nico" I found out it was based on a book. Honestly, that doesn't surprise me. It is well-plotted with intriguing characters and dark themes. For example, Billy gets Nico by buying a horse with a fake unicorn horn from a sleazy freakshow owner who we see drunkenly beat the horse into a coma.

Then there's a non-graphic but still kinda intense scene of Nico the unicorn being born.

And, of course, there's this:

 

Now that's what a kid's movie needs: A mountain lion versus a horse. And I'm not being facetious; I think the main failure of most kid's movies is that A) they're boring and B) they're simple.

A mother sacraficing herself to protect her child? That's some pretty heavy stuff for a movie like this but it works because it raises the stakes. It makes the characters, even the animals, worth carrying about.

We learn in "Nico" that the mountain lion is the natural predator of the unicorn. It's been awhile since my Unicorn classes at Unicorn University, but I'll accept that as a fact in this movie's universe. The mountain lion does continue to harass both Billy and Nico, but then you have nice layering with the fact that the sleezy freakshow owner hunts Nico down later, wearing a CAT construction hat.

This movie is fun and sad. It is charming and oddly dark. "Nico the Unicorn" is a movie that I would not only recommend to parents, but I would easily watch it again.

One last thing: the music in this movie: pure 80's fantasy. Great stuff.