Nim's Island - Review

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Rated: PG

Distributor: Fox Walden

Release Date: 2008-04-04

Starring: Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler, Abigail Breslin

Directed by Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin

Produced by Paula Mazur

Written by Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin, based on the novel by Wendy Orr

Visit the movie's Official Site!

Reviewed by Josh Tyler : 2008-04-05 04:38:50

Nim’s Island wants desperately to be Swiss Family Robinson, but it’s more like Swiss Miss: a sickly sweet, powdery substance which when mixed with water may shut your kids up for a few minutes by imitating something good. Except it’s not good, it’s terrible and I spent most of the movie curled up in my seat, approximating a semi-permanent cringe.

Abigail Breslin stars as Nim, a little girl who lives on an uncharted jungle island with her scientist father, Jack (Gerard Butler). The adventure starts with an act of bad parenting, when Butler’s character leaves his eleven-year-old daughter all alone on their isolated volcanic rock in order to spare us his awful American accent. Left to her own devices, we’re treated to Breslin’s blank, dead-eyed stare as she dances with boorish, Disneyfied jungle animals and reads out loud the emails she’s sending to her favorite adventure author, Alex Rover (Jodie Foster).

There’s really no worse way to spend your movie than watching characters email each other, yet that ends up being where Nim’s Island wastes most of its running time. Breslin reads her email out loud and hits send. Jodie Foster, alone in her apartment, receives the email, reads it out loud, types her own email while reading it out loud to absolutely no one, and then sends her response. Exciting stuff. Eventually Nim realizes her father doesn’t seem to be coming back and, assuming that Alex is just like the Indiana Jones styled adventure character in her novels, sends her an email asking for help.

But Alex is not like the adventure character in her novels, though she does frequently hallucinate him, allowing Gerard Butler to drop his awful American accent and play a rugged, fantasy adventurer the way god intended it. Foster meanwhile plays Alex as if she’s a female Woody Allen, and a total shut in afraid to leave the house to get her mail let alone hop a plane to some mysterious island to help an endangered little girl. Eventually though she faces her fears, starts the journey to Nim’s place, and we’re spared the further reading of poorly worded email correspondence.

The movie’s just a clumsy mess, the performances are awful, and there’s literally nothing to recommend it. Maybe very small children will enjoy it, there’s a dancing seal and a squeaking lizard after all, and kids love that crap no matter what sort of movie it’s in. But kids love anything and if we start gauging these things by their standards then there’s never been a bad children’s movie. Well here’s one, it’s called Nim’s Island and they don’t really get much worse than this.

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becca
September 26, 2008 at 18:06

I thought this was a cute movie and very appropriate for kids. No, NOT the best movie I've ever seen, but not the worst by far. I found it so interesting that I looked for the book at my local library. You will be happy to know, there is a sequel to the book! I'm sure you can't wait to see it made into a second Nim movie! ;-)

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amanda
September 13, 2008 at 03:33

nims island was the worst movie i have ever seen! definitely a waste of 2 hours of my life i will never get back.

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Drea
August 18, 2008 at 04:23

I was forced to see this movie with my younger cousin and I hated every moment of the movie. I sat in that movie theater staring at the clock on my cell phone almost the entire time. though my cousin did enjoy it I would recommend getting any other children movie but this one.

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d
May 23, 2008 at 23:23

na boy this a weard but eard movie and who ever reads this will know i still like chris short

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Ella
May 20, 2008 at 03:45

I love Nim. I'm obsessed with it and I want to be just like her!!!

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Rarogirl
April 29, 2008 at 17:11

Not only were the performances weak, but they shouldn't have used real island names if they weren't going to film them there or portray them accurately. One does not get from Fiji to to Rarotonga on a tiny little plane full of chickens, Rarotonga airport is not a grubby den of hawkers and pigs, and Tuvalu is not accessible this way. As a Cook Islander I felt the movie was very patronising and insulting to pacific people. Especially since it was filmed in Aussie with non-polynesian extras. Recognising Nim's island is fictional, all the other islands could have been fictional too. Just because its for kids doesn't mean its o.k to implant these kind of images of a region of the world.

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ElsieAnne
April 16, 2008 at 16:24

I enjoyed the movie actually! I went to see it with my dad this past weekend! Some parts were okay...not the best thing to do! But there were parts that I loved. And the ending was cool! SO for me I loved it !!
Never had a tree house but uhm I loved climbing trees! =]]

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JoshT
April 5, 2008 at 04:39

Hey, boys love treehouses too.

But even thinking about this movie now makes the corners of my mouth turn up in disgust.

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Katey
April 4, 2008 at 14:50

Josh, what you hear is the sound of my heart breaking. I loved this movie. I want to be Abigail Breslin. Maybe it's a girls-who-used-to-love-treehouses-in-their-youth thing?

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Nim's Island - Review

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