Movie Info:
Writers: Joseph Kwong, Paula Mazur, Mark Levin, Jennifer Flackett, Wendy Orr
Director: Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin
Cast: Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler, Michael Carman, Mark Brady, Anthony Simcoe, Christopher Baker, Peter Callan, Rhonda Doyle
Rating: PG
Studio: Fox
Release Info:
Theatrical Release: April 4, 2008
DVD Release Date: August 5, 2008
Online Availability: Amazon for $17.99
I expected a lot more out of Nim’s Island. A movie trailer shouldn’t boast that it’s a high-filled adventure movie when the movie is more about agoraphobia and the struggle of one woman to get past her fears. There were moments that made the film cute. Kids are going to like it regardless of how many moments of adventure there are or not. What is even more disappointing is that this was a vehicle for Jodie Foster. You don’t expect Jodie Foster to be in a fluffy, family movie and yet here she is, not even in all her glory.
Don’t get me wrong. Nim’s Island has moments I can enjoy. The movie does have excellent actors in it. Joining Foster are Gerard Butler and Abigail Breslin. Breslin ends up carrying much of the movie on her own and there ends up being very little interaction between both her and Butler, who plays her father, and her and Foster, the author of her favorite book series. There are many ideas that could have been expanded upon to make a truly great movie, but the writers let most of these ideas fizzle out with no major resolution.
A great example of this is when a cruise ship invades Nim’s island. With her father out at sea doing research and Nim all alone, she uses lizards and a volcano to get rid of them. It really doesn’t take much and then the problem is gone. I would expect the greedy shipmates and captain would return despite the cruise passengers freaking out, rather over dramatically. They didn’t seem like the kind of people that would give up so easily. This is just one example of what is wrong with the movie, Nim’s Island.
I watched this movie with Ashtyn and our 13 year old son, The OG Kid. After the movie, Ash and I talked about what was disappointing about this movie. From the trailer, it looked like a crazy, funny family movie with plenty of adventure shared between the characters of Abigail Breslin and Jodie Foster. What ends up happening is the two have maybe ten minutes of screen time together and that’s it. While our son found most of the movie funny and liked the movie overall, this just verifies my belief that this is a movie that is going to appeal to the kids and make grownups think twice about watching it again.
The Nim’s Island Plot
On a small, uninhabited island in the South Pacific, Nim (Breslin) lives with her dad, Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler). Her dad is some sort of marine biologist. Her mother was also a marine biologist or scientist of some sort, but her mother died some time ago, so it is just Nim, her father, and the array of animals that call the island home. The animals are Nim’s friends and she’s content in living a quiet, environmentally-friendly existence. Nim is schooled at home and the two receive shipments from the mainland every so often. They have all the modern conveniences at their home including internet services and solar powered electricity.
Nim is very excited to receive a book about her favorite adventurer, Alex Rover (portrayed by Gerard Butler). When her father goes off on a biology mission, to get an undiscovered type of protozoa, which he is going to name protozoa Nim, he decides to leave Nim alone for a few days. One of the animals on the island is about to give birth and she fears the mother will lose her babies. Nim and her dad can talk by satellite phone, and he’ll only be gone for two days.
Nim is thrilled when Alex Rover emails her father, Jack. He had written an article about the volcano on Nim’s island and Alexandra Rover (Foster) is planning to kill off her hero, Alex Rover, in her next book via volcanic sacrifice. Nim, of course, doesn’t know this. She just thinks the “real” Alex Rover is emailing her dad and she begins corresponding with Alex through email, pretending to be one of Jack’s research assistants.
When a storm hits and Nim cannot get ahold of Jack, she begins to fear the worst. On top of that, a cruise ship captain has decided to use her island as a stopping off place to make more money off of cruise ship passengers aboard his boat. He believes the island is undiscovered and uninhabited. After Nim is injured while investigating something concerning the volcano for Alex, it is discovered by Alex that Nim is just a child, who is very scared. She needs Alex’s help.
The only problem is that the real Alex is an agoraphobic who hasn’t been out of her house in months. A trip to the South Pacific most definitely isn’t her idea of a pleasure cruise.
Storyline/Plot: 
Replayability:
Acting: 
Directing:
Audio/Visual:
The actual island Nim lives on is beautiful. It can be clearly seen thanks to the visual quality of Nim’s Island. This movie suffers in so many other ways, but the one area where it shines is the cinematography. Had the DVD release been presented with lesser quality, it would have been harder to watch. Even so, this is a screener copy, so I can’t say much about the final product. If it is as good as the screener I saw, then most audience members will be happy. Nevertheless, there was the occasional compression error. Pixelation was an occasional problem and edge enhancement was also present in certain scenes. The colors were vibrant though and while the contrast wasn’t as sharp as it could be, it still didn’t affect my viewing pleasure.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track sounds excellent. No changes need to be made here. The audio is dynamic. I didn’t have to fool around with the volume. There is the option for Spanish and French soundtracks as well as closed captioning in all three languages. Subtitles are available in English and Spanish. The audio (next to the cinematography) was the best part of the movie. I guess that really isn’t saying all that much.
Bonus Features:
The second best part of Nim’s Island is the abundance of well put together bonus features. The bonuses start off with an audio commentary. This commentary is quite entertaining as it is with Jodie Foster and Abigail Breslin. The commentary is kid friendly and the two play off one another nicely. Breslin is really just an all American kid, and that shows in this commentary and Foster relates well to the younger actress. This is probably because Foster was a successful child actress herself.
There is a second commentary with Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett. Flackett co-directed the film with Levin and also helped to write Nim’s Island. This commentary looks at how the movie was adapted from the book, also called Nim’s Island. The commentary is child-friendly, as well though the tone is slightly more mature than the previous commentary, simply because the two involved are both adults.
There are three featurettes included in the Nim’s Island DVD bonus section. The first featurette is “Nim’s Friends”. This featurette looks at the animals used on the set. Abigail talks about working with a sea lion, a pelican, and a lizard (bearded dragon). There is a sneak peek at just how many animals were used to film one role in this movie. The second featurette is “Abigail’s Journey”. Abigail Breslin shows what it takes to get into character as Nim and how she (and the rest of the cast) went about making the movie. The final featurette is “Working on Water”. Since Nim’s Island is set on an island, there are many water scenes. The best featurette in the bunch, this featurette shows exactly how all the water scenes were filmed and any movie magic that was used to make the water scenes more realistic.
Finally, there are a series of deleted scenes (many of which actually enhanced the movie and shouldn’t have been cut), a series of PSAs about nature, and a theatrical trailer.
Bonus Features:
Bottom Line:
Nim’s Island wasn’t as good as I expected this movie to be. I was fairly disappointed by the entire film. If you have kids, you might want to pick this up anyway. The movie does have enough feel good, family friendly moments, as well as humorous events to appease a wide range of children. Of course, if you are an adult or you have fairly picky children who aren’t as thrilled with less than stellar family movies, you might just want to rent this one instead or wait to catch it when it comes on television.
Overall Rating:
Technorati Tags: Nim’s Island, DVD Review, Jodie Foster, Abigail Breslin, Fantasy, family film, Fox
Written by Dominick Evans - Visit Website
---
Dominick is in his late 20s. He lives in Michigan with his life partner, Ashtyn, their 14 year old son Robert, and their Shih-Tzu, Oliver. Dominick is a writer and the head editor for both LI Kids and Literary Illusions. He enjoys composing music and is an aspiring director/screenwriter. In his free time he enjoys spending time with his family, playing and watching sports, playing video games, watching movies, and singing.
