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Re: Nims Island
Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler) is a microbiologist living on a relatively secret island in the south Pacific Ocean with his young daughter Nim (Abigail Breslin). It's an idyllic life for Nim and her small cast of animal friends features a sea lion, a lizard and a seagull. The Rusoes have many of the normal amenities through ingenuity and means (electricity via solar panels, satellite internet access, satellite phones), even though they live on an un-developed island. They receive shipments from the outside world from time to time, and a recent shipment included the new installment of the Alex Rover novels, featuring a rugged character also named Alex Rover who goes on adventures far and wide, much to the delight of Nim. What Nim doesn't know is that the author is really Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), a female author who is also agorophobic and a clean-freak, shunning human contact as much as possible.
As fate would have it, Alexandra has hit the wall in terms of finishing her latest novel, and attempts to make contact with Jack because of an article on living on a volcanic island he got published in National Geographic. Jack goes looking for protozoic lifeforms, which takes him away from Nim for 2 nights minimum on the outset, so Nim happens on the emails that Alexandra sends to Jack, and Nim befriends Alex (thinking it's a male writer who pens her favorite literary character), and gets herself somewhat hurt after doing some research for Alex. This guilts Alexandra into trying to find Nim and her island, the first tough step to her is simply leaving her home.
Although the film has a touch of fantasy interweaved into its story, it's grounded fairly well into reality, but the fun factor is basically stripped away once it gets into its 2nd act, and the remainder of the film goes on auto-pilot, although Jodie Foster was very entertaining as Alexandra the agorophobe, and has a knack for physical comedy (whodthunkit?). Abigail Breslin is always a delight, and Gerard Butler has some fun playing Jack and also "Alex Rover" who is Alexandra's imaginary voice in her head. Some of Jack's scenes by himself, when he's trying to find his way back him after getting hit by stormy conditions, showcase some really stupid sounding lines of dialogue. I found those scenes just odd sounding.
I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.
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