A kiddie adventure film
set in motion by a horrifying act of neglect, Nim's Island casts Gerard Butler and Little
Miss Sunshine
star Abigail Breslin as a father/daughter team who enjoy an idyllic existence
on an otherwise uninhabited South Pacific island. Butler conducts research on
microplankton; Breslin befriends local animals and reads voraciously,
especially the pulpy tales starring, and apparently written by, an Indiana
Jones-like adventurer named Alex Ryder (also played by Butler in fantasy
sequences).
All seems to be going well
until Butler decides to take a two-day research jaunt at sea, only to hit a
storm that leaves him stranded, while Breslin wonders whether her dad is ever
coming back. By sheer coincidence, she receives an e-mail from Ryder, asking a
question about her island's inactive volcano. Not realizing that Alex Ryder is
actually Alexandra Ryder (Jodie Foster), an agoraphobic San Francisco author,
Breslin asks her for help, forcing Foster to leave the cocoon of her home for
the first time in months, and dare a trip to the island.
Essentially two films in
one, Nim's Island
divides its time between Foster's attempts to navigate the terrors of
international travel and Breslin's gimmicky schemes to keep an intrusive cruise
ship filled with overweight Australians off her turf. (Think Home Alone:
Island Adventure.)
Neither works all that well apart, and when they come together, it's something
of an anticlimax.
Directors Jennifer
Flackett and Mark Levin deliver some eye-catching fantasy sequences in the
early scenes, but the film grows more mundane and the tone more uneven as it
goes on. (It's a slapstick comedy about phobias! No, wait, it's a whimsical
storybook fantasy!) Kids might like the animals and probably won't be bothered
by the forced enthusiasm of Breslin's performance—or some of the most
shameless product placement since You've Got Mail—but there are much
more interesting worlds out there for them to visit.