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Nim's Island
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Nim's Island is a 2008 American film directed by Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin. The film stars Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster, and Gerard Butler. The story is a adventure-fantasy film based on the book Nim's Island by Wendy Orr, a Canadian-born Australian writer. A young girl, Nim, seeks help from the author of her favorite adventure series when her scientist father goes missing. Nim, though, lives on an island in the South Pacific. The author, Alexandra Rover, is an agoraphobic living in San Francisco. Rover overcomes her fears and sets out in search of Nim while Nim tries to overcome her fear of losing her father. In the meantime, a cruise ship company threatens to invade Nim's island with uncouth tourists. The film was released on April 4, 2008.

Plot:

Nim (Abigail Breslin) is an 11-year-old girl, whose mother has died. Her father said she was swallowed by a Blue Whale after it was scared by a ship called the Buccaneers. She lives with her father Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler), a marine biologist, on an island in the South Pacific. She has some local animals for company: Selkie the Sea lion, Fred the Bearded Dragon, Chica the Turtle, and Galileo the Pelican. Jack goes by boat on a scientific mission of two days to find protozoa Nim (a new species of plankton); he wants to take her along, but she convinces him that she can manage on her own on the island; they will be able to communicate by satellite phone.

Nim, who is fond of Alex Rover adventure books written by Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), receives an email addressed to her father with an inquiry about his field of knowledge. The sender "Alex Rover" seems to be the explorer, but is actually Alexandra, a neurotic San Franciscan who constantly sees her character Alex Rover (also Gerard Butler). An email conversation follows, where Nim first poses as her father's assistant and then goes to the volcano on the island to see whats inside it and is hurt in the process.

Jack suffers a shipwreck, which makes it impossible for Nim and Jack to communicate. Also, he does not return on the planned date. Throughout the movie, Galileo brings Jack things he needs to fix his ship. Nim explains the situation to "Alex". Although she suffers from agoraphobia and therefore never leaves the house or even opens the door, she travels to the island to rescue Nim.

The island is visited by tourists, taken by Nim to be pirates. Without exposing herself, she scares them away by shooting animals at them. One of the tourists, a spoiled rich boy named Edmund, follows her and sees her. He is confused by her presence, and believes her to be another tourist. But when he tells the others, he isn't believed and punished severely by his parents for leaving them. The tourists leave. Alex arrives by helicopter at the tourists' boat and tells about her rescue mission. The tourists do not believe that a girl is on the island, but Edmund tells her what he had seen. Encouraged, Alex goes to the island and is saved by Nim from drowning. At first Nim doesn't want her to stay, but eventually allows her. Later Jack arrives on a raft still holding the plankton and he and Alexandra fall in love.

Cast:

* Abigail Breslin as Nim Rusoe
* Jodie Foster as Alexandra Rover
* Gerard Butler as Jack Rusoe / Alex Rover
* Alphonso McAuley as Russell
* Morgan Griffin as Alice
* Michael Carman as Captain
* Christopher Baker as Ensign
* Maddison Joyce as Edmund

Production:

Screenwriters Joseph Kwong and Paula Mazur wrote a script based on the book Nim's Island written by Wendy Orr and Kerry Millard. Husband-and-wife team Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin were attached to re-write the script and direct the film adaptation under Walden Media. Actresses Abigail Breslin and Jodie Foster were cast into the lead roles in April 2007, and actor Gerard Butler was cast into the film a month later. Production began in late July 2007 in Australia.

Critical reception:

The film received mixed reviews from critics. As of April 10, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 49% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 80 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on 23 reviews.

Box office performance:

In its opening weekend, Nim's Island grossed $13.3 million in 3,513 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #2 at the box office behind 21. As of August 24, 2008, the film had a domestic box office gross of $48,006,503 surpassing its $37 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo and a foreign gross of $36,771,710 and total of $84,778,213 worldwide.

Nim's Island (Widescreen Edition)
Directed by Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin
Average customer review:

Product Description

Welcome to Nim's Island a tropical paradise where imagination runs wild and adventure rules! Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) Jodie Foster and Gerard Butler shine in this fun "exhilarating and enchanting family picture" (San Francisco Chronicle) based on Wendy Orr's beloved novel.Nim Rusoe (Breslin) lives on a deserted island with her scientist father Jack (Butler) and her best friends: Selkie a sea lion; Fred a bearded dragon lizard; and Galileo a plucky pelican. But when Jack goes missing at sea and the island is "invaded" Nim reaches out via e-mail to the adventurous author (Foster) of her favorite books and together each discovers what it takes to truly become the hero of your own life story.System Requirements:Running Time: 96 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: PG UPC: 024543527527 Manufacturer No: 2252752

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #169 in DVD
* Brand: NIM'S ISLAND (WS) (DVD MOVIE)
* Released on: 2008-08-05
* Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
* Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
* Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
* Original language: English
* Subtitled in: English, Spanish
* Dubbed in: French, Spanish
* Number of discs: 1
* Dimensions: .20 pounds
* Running time: 96 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Adventure doesn't always begin with pirates on the high seas or explorers deep in the desert; sometimes it starts with an idyllic life on a private island in the middle of the South Asiatic Sea. For 11-year old Nim (Abigail Breslin) and her father and microbiologist Jack Russo (Gerard Butler), life is perfect thanks to their love of nature, Jack's mechanical ingenuity, and regular deliveries via supply ship. Loneliness is never an issue for Nim because of her special friendships with Selkie the sea lion, Galileo the pelican, and Freddie the iguana and her education is intensive, if rather unique. Adventure and imagination are ways of life for Nim whether she's heading out to sea to help her father collect plankton specimens, playing soccer on the beach with Selkie, or delving into the latest Alex Rover adventure novel, but everything changes when Jack departs on the boat for a two-night expedition to collect plankton specimens and gets caught in an unexpected storm. Alone on the island, Nim begins to worry about her father's safety as well as her own and, through a chance email, connects with Alex Rover (Jodie Foster) whom she begs to come help find her father. Problem is, author Alexandra Rover is an unbalanced big city shut-in who's afraid to leave her townhouse, not the fearless adventure hero portrayed in her books. Nim, Alexandra, and Jack embark upon the adventures of a lifetime in which each must overcome his or her own fears and perceived powerlessness and limitations in order to grow and help one another. The question is; can each prevail against his or her own insecurities and the fury of nature? Based on the novel Nim's Island by Wendy Orr, Nim's Island is first and foremost a captivating adventure full of suspense and peril which also offers a touching look at the love between a father and daughter. (Ages 7 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

Nims Island
I watched this without the company of children and still found pleasure in the story line. It definitely requires the ability to stretch your mind into the realms of fantasy so it's important to watch from a child-like point of view. Abigail Breslin is a delight and, surprisingly, there is a moral to the story that I found heartwarming. Jody Foster is very funny, and Gerard Butler is always a pleasure to watch.

Needs a Better Story and Director
Abigail Breslin is Nim, a young girl living in an isolated island in the South Pacific alone with her father Jack (Gerard Butler). When her father, a slightly eccentric biologist, is missing after a heavy storm, Nim asks for a help from the most unlikely person in the world: Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), an agoraphobic writer living in a big city, famous for her successful "Alex Rover" series, Indiana Jones-like adventure novels. "Nim's Island" has the right ingredients to make a great family picture (and a nice change of pace for Jodie Foster), which it is not, however as the film is helmed by wrong directors.

In fact, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin's "Nim"s Island" could have been a great family picture with a better director. In the film's introduction Nim is shown as an independent and clever girl who can also communicate with animals. The imaginative girl has a lot of stories to tell us, about her mother (apparently dead) and father, animals, island and herself. She is also a gifted storyteller (as the film's introduction shows) and is good at using computers too.

But somehow the director team didn't realize that such an intelligent girl would not mistake tourists for buccaneers. Even if she does, she doesn't need a slapstick comedy sequence like flying lizards. After the promising beginning, the film's story suddenly starts to meander in the mid-section with a train of silly set-pieces, and we start to think: Well, Nim has sent a message to Alexandra, a reclusive writer to come over to help her, but why should she do that if she is really a clever girl? Isn't that impractical and most of all, a bit selfish? But the film doesn't seem aware of that, leaving us far behind.

Of course the contrived situation could be forgotten if the film provides us with a good story, in this case, a story of Alexandra. I hate to say this, but Jodie Foster's "comic" antics as fish-out-of-water Alexandra only irritated me with her terrible overacting. Here is a job for directors who should have stopped the camera to say "no" to her. I really like her, but it is painful to watch her yelling, stumbling and vomiting (twice), all cliché. Is this all necessary after all when the film is titled "Nim's Island"?