If Child Protective Services could get a load of 11-year-old Nim (Breslin), who lives alone on a remote South Pacific island with her marine-biologist dad, Jack (Butler), talks to animals and doesn’t go to school, there wouldn’t be much of a movie here.
Thankfully, they’re nowhere to be seen, but Foster, who plays agoraphobic adventure writer Alex Rover, provides enough hand-wringing to make up for them. Alex has e-mailed Jack about facts on volcanos for her latest book, but instead reaches Nim, who is Alex’s biggest fan (she thinks “Alex” is a man). When Jack goes off to search for new forms of sea life and goes missing in a storm, and “pirates” (actually tourists) threaten to invade Nim’s island, Nim pleads for Alex to leave the safety of her sanitized apartment and help. Fortunately, Foster is a skilled enough performer that she plays the uptight writer with just the right balance of comedy, rather than the kind of overwhelming aggression that, say, Ben Stiller usually brings to this kind of overdone role. Likewise, Breslin has an appealing smile that helps her relax into her role.
Co-directors Flackett and Levin have clearly taken Indiana Jones as their inspiration; Alex often speaks to her imaginary, literary creation, an adventurer with her name, dressed like Indy in a fedora and leather jacket. The filmmakers manage to re-create the summery brightness of those films, achieving a refreshing, clean-air quality. But they utterly fail to capture the briskness and supple movement of an adventure film. Too often their cuts feel rushed and clumsy, perhaps to accommodate too many CGI creatures or digital stunt doubles into the action. Very often the movie feels set-bound as well. But for all that, Nim’s Island is good-spirited and never stoops to toilet jokes or bodily functions for easy laughs—even though all those CGI animals must have made it tempting. Even the adults get to behave, for the most part, like adults, rather than cuckolds to make the kids seem smarter. Even though she’s sometimes scared, this kid is smart all by herself.
Nim’s Island
** 1/2
Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler
Directed by Jennifer Flackett
and Mark Levin
Rated PG