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Movie Review: Nim's Island
by Bill Wine
An island-dwelling young girl who lives with her scientist father reaches out for help from a book author
RATING: PG
GENRE: Adventure comedy
RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2008
RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes
VIOLENCE FACTOR: There is adventure action, but nothing that could be described as violent.
BAD WORDS: A few that barely register as such
RACY? Not at all
GRANDS:
CRITIQUE:
Sometimes the journey from book to screen is fraught with artistic peril. Take the movie version of Wendy Orr's fanciful children's novel, Nim's Island.
Please.
Nim is a young adolescent. Feisty and independent, she lives on a South Pacific Island with her widowed dad and a bunch of animals. It's not that she doesn’t want to be there, but she's more or less trapped there. As a result, she spends much of her time living in her imagination.
Alex, short for Alexandra, Rover is a lot older than Nim. Agoraphobic in the extreme, she never leaves her big-city apartment. She too spends much of her time living in her imagination, writing adventure novels about the world's greatest adventurer, a fellow by the name of Alex Rover. Nim reads the Alex Rover books, which are as much her friends as the sea lion and pelican and lizard in her island neighborhood.
Then, Nim's father, a marine biologist, goes missing during a storm at sea. Not knowing anyone else to call on, Nim contacts Alexandra, who, despite her spate of fears, makes her way to Nim's island to be of help. Precocious Abigail Breslin is okay as Nim, and Gerard Butler — doing double duty as the face of Nim's imagined Alex — is serviceable as her dad. But Jodie Foster, in a rare comic role, shows us why she avoids the genre: She has absolutely no knack for comedy.
Admirably, Nim's Island celebrates reading, writing, and imagining. Unfortunately, this work condescends to a young audience by encouraging overacting and making self-conscious attempts to be cute and funny.
The film is neither.
Young grandchildren may respond to this creaky vehicle, but grandparents will end up a lot more familiar with their watches.
GP Rating System:
Three Grands = Bravo, don't miss it.
Two Grands = Good enough, don't dismiss it.
One Grand = Okay, even if we dis it.
| Looks like it could be good.
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| Not a bad Show.
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