STUDIO: Twentieth Century Fox
RELEASE DATE: August 5, 2008
STARRING: Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster, and Gerard Butler
WRITTEN BY: Joseph Kwong & Paula Mazur and Mark Levin & Jennifer Flackett
DIRECTED BY: Mark Levin & Jennifer Flackett
FEATURES: Adventure Commentary With Jodie Foster And Abigail Breslin
Commentary With Directors/Writers Mark Levin & Jennifer Flackett
Deleted Scenes
Nim's Spyglass Bonus View Mode
Nim's Friends Featurette
Abigail's Journey Featurette
Working On Water Featurette
Write Your Own Alex Rover Adventure Game
Coconut Soccer Game
Seaside Shuffle Game
Nim's Island Trivia Track

Kids really do want to have it all. Look no further than Nim's Island, which features roughly two subplots too many but enough skill in front of and behind the camera to make most of its plot threads work. Nim's Island is a noble piece of work in that it's about lessons that all young people should learn like "get out of the house more" and "love your family" and it doesn't rely on gross-out humor to appeal to its demographic. It also has a sweet and underplayed girl power message and one that makes it clear that sometimes even adults need saving. It's also certainly helpful to have two actresses as supremely talented as Abigail Breslin and Jodie Foster in front of the camera (and Gerard Butler is proving that he has screen charisma to burn). But Nim's Island is a based on a book by one person that was adapted by four others. That many cooks in the kitchen can lead to a sometimes-muddled recipe. But for the right, forgiving audience and even for the right parent in the right mood, just the incredibly charming leads and the heartwarming messages should be enough to make a trip to Nim's Island a worthwhile one, especially on Blu-Ray.

Breslin (of Little Miss Sunshine fame) expertly plays Nim Rusoe (kind of like "Crusoe", don't ya think?) Nim lives on a deserted island with her scientist father Jack (300's Gerard Butler) and makes friends with sea lions and lizards. She's happy living off the grid and even happier when she reads the adventures written by Alex Rover, her favorite author. Of course, Alex is actually Alexandra (Jodie Foster) and she's the exact opposite of her adventurous creation (who talks to her in the form of Butler). The real Alex Rover is an agoraphobic who can't even walk out of her front door much less climb mountains and explore volcanoes. Jack Rusoe heads out on a seafaring, scientific trip and leaves the independent Nim on the island alone. Poor dad gets stranded at sea and Nim reaches out to her favorite author for help. Nim tries to survive on the island while Jack tries to get home to her and Alex tries to come to her rescue. Meanwhile, in a very poorly crafted subplot, a group of tourists come to the island and Nim tries to scare them off so that the Rusoes can keep this paradise to themselves.

The 'A plot' - the one with Nim, Jack, and Alex and the lessons they learn about the risks and rewards of adventure - completely works. In fact, if the four writers and two directors had spent all their time on it and avoided some of the cutesy material like a farting sea lion and all of the poorly-staged scenes with the tourists, Nim's might have been an instant kids classic. As is, it's a pretty good movie for its audience that will even make an impact on a few of the parents in the crowd. Breslin and Foster make everything they do better and the heartwarming themes of the movie had truly beaten down my critical defenses by the end of the film. Don't be surprised if the same thing happens to you.

Something that will make the flaws of Nim's Island much easier to ignore is the spectacular Blu-Ray treatment from Fox. The picture and sound are spectacular, but it's the special features that are truly, shockingly excellent. I LOVE the development of Blu-Ray that allows for special features to play picture-in-picture as the film plays. Great special features expand the experience of a film, but when you're bouncing around menu screens on a standard DVD, it can be hard to keep focus. Nim's Island allows for "Nim's Spyglass Bonus View Mode", where the viewer can watch behind-the-scenes featurettes that are specific to what you're watching at that moment in the film. That coolness alone would make Nim's Island a Blu-Ray worth picking up, but it's far from alone with games, deleted scenes, stand-alone featurettes, a trivia track, and a directors commentary. The best feature is that Breslin and Foster show up for one of the sweetest and most enjoyable commentary tracks that I've heard in a long time. It's like an actual mother and daughter talking about a great experience that they had together. I know it makes me sound cheesy, but it's really, really sweet and touching in its humanity. Kind of like most of Nim's Island itself.