Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
4/25/08
One of the first things you
learn when studying film is that all movie stories have three acts.
Act 1 (The Inciting Incident) and Act 3 (The Climax) are bridged by Act
2, the meat of the movie, where the goals of the characters meet one setback
after another as they struggle toward what either will or will not go their
way in Act 3. So odd, then, to see a movie with only two acts:
in Nim's Island, problems emerge, characters form plans to deal
with those problems, and successfully enact those plans. Sure, they're
bumpy roads they go down, but there are no twists, no reversals, nothing
but a slow and steady march to a place we know we're going very early on.
This bright, sunny kids' movie is pleasant enough and sports a couple of
game, energetic performances. But in the end, as Simon Cowell once
said, it's like ordering a hamburger and only getting the bun.
Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler)
is a scientist who lives on a deserted volcanic island with his daughter
Nim (Abigail Breslin). He writes articles for National Geographic,
but still manages to keep the island's location a secret. Nim's friends
are the local, highly anthropomorphic animals and the books she reads.
Her favorites are the Alex Rover novels, concerning a globe-trotting adventurer
not unlike Indiana Jones. The presumption is that this guy is the
“Alex Rover” who writes the books, but the actual author is Alexandra Rover
(Jodie Foster), a “borderline agoraphobic” who eats only canned soup and
is so deep into a nervous breakdown she actually sees and speaks to the
hero she writes about (Butler again, for some reason). Stuck on some
volcanic details for her new book, Alexandra e-mails Jack, but he's at
sea looking for an elusive species of plankton (yeah, it's that kind of
movie) so Nim starts answering her questions. Alas, Jack's boat is
struck by a storm and he does not return, and a fearful Nim e-mails “Alex
Rover” for help. Driven by that imaginary voice in her head, Alexandra
leaves her apartment for the first time in months and begins a worldwide
quest to get to Nim's Island while Jack tries to fix his boat and Nim handles
another problem: a cruise ship full of passengers has disembarked
on her family's secret island...
And that's about it.
The best stuff involves Foster and Butler's Alex Rover persona: she's
one of our best actresses and it's fun to watch her cut loose and play
some comedy. Granted, Alexandra has as many issues as any of her
Oscar-winning roles, and the way her literary character speaking to her
is so clearly the harbinger of a total breakdown plays really well without
getting too maudlin. Butler has a lot of fun in the Indy getup, I
imagine he and Foster could have put on a pretty good Romancing the
Stone-style action movie. Even here, the two of them have great
timing as they try out one variation on He: “You're out in the world!”
She: “I hate the world!” after another. I also liked the many
different ways the film presents their “relationship” from him simply following
her around to the two of them on opposite sides of a mirror as literally
the same person. It's a grand comic psychosis hiding out in a movie
targeted at audiences that have probably never even heard of agoraphobia.
The former Leonidas has less
luck in his other role as Nim's Dad. The character is dubious to
start with (just why is he raising his daughter on a secret island?) and
offers him little to do but scream at the elements while trying to fix
his boat. Of course, I'd imagine Butler is going to spend a lot of
the rest of his career screaming after 300 proved
him to be a master of it.
Nim herself is obviously
there for the kiddies, and her role would have seemed right at home in
a 70's Dean Jones Disney movie. Breslin does as much as anyone could
with the role, showing off the kid next door sweetness that's made her
the new Hollywood “It” Kid. But the stuff pitting her against the
tourists is silly at best. Once she's got her animal friends farting
at them, it's even worse than that (OK, I did like the screaming lizards
flying through the air). Some elements on the island (watch the scene
where she meets a little boy from the tourist ship and try to figure out
just what the heck the two of them are talking about) hint at massive tinkering
with an original cut that included a lot more fantasy, while others (you
know a movie's in trouble when it so clearly thinks the mere act of being
fat is hilarious) wouldn't have worked no matter what was around them.
The oh, so human animals who populate the island are certainly realistic
enough, and Breslin interacts well with them, but none but the screaming
lizard displays a memorable personality (the pelican's a bit of a know-it-all
if you ask me).
This is one of the more peculiar
product placement movies: Alexandra can't go anywhere without Progresso
Soup and Purell hand sanitizer, but did either of those advertisers have
any idea the movie would present their products as obstacles to a character's
sanity? Maybe they think there IS no such thing as bad publicity,
but I think the woman who claimed she'd found a finger in her Wendy's chili
could tell you otherwise...
Jennifer Flackett & Mark
Levin, part of a team of four who adapted Wendy Orr's novel, direct with
high spirits, and Stuart Dryburgh's cinematography is relentlessly bright
and cheerful. Nim's Island is a hard movie to hate, and if
you're young enough to think the tourist subplot is funny or lack the attention
span to realize that the plot doesn't go ANYWHERE surprising, you may actually
like it. Me, I'm still searching trash cans around the studio looking
for the meat that should have gone between those buns. |
