YMMV / The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue

• Angst? What Angst?: Despite the fact that Martin went missing when Timmy was young, the latter is seen happily singing in the Growing Up Montage.
• Anticlimax Boss:
  • Evil Martin, who's defeated in one blow when Jenny, quite literally throws the book at him; or rather quashes him under a large stack of them, either way.
  • An even more egregious case with Dr. Valentine, who after so much buildup from Jenny turns out to have been brainwashed to behave like a dog by Martin, without a single punch pulled or even a line of dialogue!
• Ass Pull: Three examples:
  • First is Nicodemus' prophecy. It was never mentioned in the first film and was just thrown in for the purpose of giving the film a plot. What's even more jarring is that Nicodemus may have had telekinetic abilities, was wise and had a magical viewing globe but it was never made explicit that he could tell the future. And if he could see the future, shouldn't he have seen the brick that killed him coming? Even more is that according to the prophecy, a son of Jonathan Brisby would be chosen to save the rats from N.I.M.H. The prophecy doesn't specifically say which son would save them, so Martin could've been the one to stop N.I.M.H., but the film acts like Timmy was always decided to be the chosen hero out of nowhere.
  • Second is Mrs. Brisby's letter to Timmy that Martin is missing. You would think that because Martin is an important character in the story that this letter should be an important plot point, but it is thrown in quite far into the movie just to explain that Martin went missing. It even looks like Timmy pulled the thing out of his ass.
  • Timothy finally "learning to listen", after an entire movie of doing exactly the opposite no matter what the situation, when he finally escapes from Martin's prison and begins to actually think through a plan to save his friends. Throwing this claim out as he does comes off as a cheap resolution to the very thing that nearly cost everybody in a big way.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The prophecy surrounding Timothy's eventual heroism can come across as one when one notes that at no point was any such prophecy mentioned in the original film; perhaps most controversially, there already was a sequel novel to the original book on which the original Secret of NIMH had been based, and many feel its plot could have been a more worthy setup for this sequel than the prophecy in question. The fact that this film constantly emphasizes that Timmy will rise up to be a hero like his father in the face of evidence to the contrary doesn't help its case at all.
• Awesome Music: The reprise of "All I Had is Gone" over the ending credits is perhaps the most moving of all the songs in the movie.
  • "Just Say Yes" is also in this trope because of it's fast paced dramatic style.
• Base-Breaking Character: Evil Martin. Either he is one of the very few redeeming qualities of the movie or he just adds to the stupidity of the whole thing. Then you have a third group who think he's both, and the smaller fourth group who thinks the idea was perfectly good but the way it's handled ruins it.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The "Magic Mystery Show", sung by Jeremy and Cecil, accompanied by a bunch of dancing forest animals. It gets really ridiculous at points (Cecil's 'Optimouse' credit card is every bit as nonsensical as a Bat Credit Card,) and after the animals realize it's a scam and chase Jeremy and Cecil away, no one talks about it again.
• Designated Hero: Timmy for his Failure Hero status, the praise he gets for doing virtually nothing, his unwillingness to follow directions and for his overall recklessness in confronting the obstacles before him.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Most fans of the original refuse to even acknowledge the existence of this film.
• Ham and Cheese: Eric Idle as Evil Martin. He gives a nice, entertainingly hammy performance.
• It Was His Sled: Martin is the villain.
• Magnificent Bastard: Martin Brisby, eldest son of the Brisby house, was overexposed to the mad science of NIMH that made the rats' super-intelligence possible, turning him into a devious Mad Scientist. Martin effortlessly manipulated his human owner Dr. Valentine until the time came to devolve and replace Dr. Valentine, at which point he begins an ambitious scheme of mass-brainwashing in order to take over the world. Martin lures Timmy into his clutches and endeavors to rule together with him.
• Questionable Casting: Eric Idle as Evil Martin. However, he arguably gives the most entertaining performance in the film.
• Retroactive Recognition: Jenny McBride was Hynden Walch’s first voice-over role, about five years before her Star-Making Role as Starfire in Teen Titans (2003).
• Sequelitis: The incredibly bad animation quality and a lack of faithfulness to the original film's art direction, completely going against the serious, competent story, mood and characterization of the original film in favor of Flanderization, narmy writing combined with phoned in voice acting, and musical numbers. The plot is riddled with cliches, Mrs. Brisby is in the film for about a grand total of 25 seconds, and the entire conflict of the movie is an extremely obvious Self-Fulfilling Prophecy that can be seen a mile away. As with many of the unofficial Bluth sequels, Timmy to the Rescue is popular with some younger audiences due to the Lighter and Softer setup (which was likely what was intended).
• Signature Scene: Evil Martin's Villain Song, easily the best remembered part of the movie and a guilty pleasure even for its harshest critics.
• Special Effects Failure: Expect a lot of poor lip syncing throughout if you're watching carefully.
• So Bad, It's Good: To some, Evil Martin in general. His being the villain is so bizarre and nonsensical and yet Eric Idle's gloriously hammy performance is one of the (very) few fun moments in the movie. The whole thing (particularly his Villain Song) is so stupid and bad it's hilarious. However, see Base-Breaking Character earlier in this page.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Timothy is this in spades. Being a largely static character due to having been bedridden for the majority of the original film, the sequel should've opened up many new possibilities through which to evolve his character and personality. A story exploring his own future heroic exploits could have lent itself to this, but most fans will agree that the end result instead had the opposite effect, given Timothy being Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
  • Miss Right, Jeremy's girlfriend whom he meets at the end of the first film, does not appear or get mentioned in the sequel. Many fans were disappointed that she did not appear at all, as she was the only female crow and Jeremy had finally found a mate after having several failed loves in the first film. Many are of the opinion that she should have appeared in this film and told a story where Jeremy formed a family with her.
  • Mrs. Brisby. Fans were not at all pleased to see her reduced to a background character with only a handful of lines onscreen after all she had been put through in the first film. For some, this alone was enough for them to disavow the sequel.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This movie could've been far better for many if it had adapted more of its elements from Rasco and the Rats of NIMH or having the movie based off of the book instead of what we ended up getting. It handled the "Timothy is the hero who will save Thorn Valley" plot far better than this movie did, complete with a great deal of Not Now, Kiddo and How Do I Shot Web? before the rats actually listen to him and Racso and he comes up with ideas that actually work. Strangely despite this, Timmy To the Rescue does share some small similarities with the book.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Everybody in Thorn Valley for pressuring Timmy into being like his late father because of the alleged prophecy, even his own family. They spend the better part of several years building up Timothy as the one who would follow in his father's footsteps as the Valley's next great protector before he'd done anything to win such praise. This quickly comes back to bite them all in the butt when he's an adult and eager to prove his worth in this role, only to prove extremely irrational and reckless with his friends having to remind him that "he wasn't ready" for the still-obscure task that lay ahead of him. That said, their earlier praise of him when he was young probably magnified a lot of his bad attitude later in life, remarking that he now acted as if "he knew better than everyone else". It nearly proves fatal not just for Timmy but to the entirety of Thorn Valley, as it is this misguided upbringing that causes them to fall into Evil Martin's clutches.
  • What really stands out about their treatment of Timmy is that, in spite of literally singing his praises, nobody in Thorn Valley is ever seen actually mentoring him or helping to realize the potential they all say he has. The most we get is a brief scene with Justin, where they basically are just goofing around; heck, when he comes up with a clever way of getting rid of a snake that would have most certainly posed a danger to the inhabitants, he gets scolded for taking the initiative. And, as time goes by, we see Tim doing nothing more than manual labor around the town, like shoveling snow or washing the cobblestones. No physical training, no higher education, nothing; he's literally been relegated to the role of handyman. Taking that into consideration, is it any wonder Tim turned out the way he did?

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