"The Island of Nimes" is a screen version of the book by Wendy Orr, published in 2002. Directors - husband and wife Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin were called to write a script for the book, and then transfer it to the screen.
The plot is already interesting in itself - a little girl with an intriguing name Nim carelessly lives on an abandoned island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with her father-oceanologist, having no problems and not denying herself anything (she suggests what deprivations had to be transferred to the lonely Robinson Crusoe) . Father Nim, Jack Russo, is one of those fanatical scholars who adore their children. But he is even more worried about the extraction of a new kind of nanoplankton - nothing else except this food of whales does not care. Mother Nimes at one time was lucky enough to become a victim of a whale in the ocean, because the father and daughter live singing along alone on a lonely island.
Every three months a steamer arrives to them with everything necessary for a small population. The only friends of Nim here are Iguana Fred, the sea lion Selki, the turtle Chiki and the pelican Galileo. In her free time, the girl does only that and that she climbs the palm trees, sits on the Internet and eagerly reads books about her idol-adventurer Alex Rovere.
Once the father-oceanologist leaves for some days on searches of a new kind, leaving the girl one. When a real Pacific hurricane is played out, Nim begins to worry about his father. Completely casually, she wrote himself Alex Rover, the hero of novels, offering to come to her island.
A little choreography of the film is compensated by a good cast. In the title role of the adventure tale, talented Abigail Breslin, who excellently played in the sensational "Little Miss Happiness". Gerard Butler, a little lost after the "300 Spartans," performs here just two roles - Father Nim and Alex Rover. A little disappointed Jodie Foster. She played a writer Alexandra Rover, suffering from agoraphobia - for a week now she was not dragged out of the apartment. But she played unconvincingly - how can it be perfect for a couple of hours to settle in a strange world and learn to row in a storm? Pleased with the sea lion (and I thought it was a seal), as a circus actor flapping flippers, and a clever pelican, helping the hero Butler in a difficult moment. It can be seen that the time spent training a movie zoo wasted.
One of the highlights of this family movie was the soundtrack from Oscar-winning Peter Doyle and the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra, who managed to convey the atmosphere of the mysterious island of Nîmes.
The picture turned out to be childishly kind, but there is no wholeness in the plot, the three story lines go in a cut with each other and at times you notice that each of these lines does not coincide with the other in time. It was incomprehensible and the desire of Butler to play two characters at once and Jodie Foster's awkward attempts to translate on the screen the one who is afraid of the whole writer.
"The Island of Nimes" literally created for children, and despite the plane of humor, the girl and her funny cute little animals, no doubt, like small lovers of modern fairy tales.