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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 05/12/2008 : 01:09:34
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Nim
Gee willakers,kids, how'd you like your own private island? Stuck in the middle of the south Pacific, just you and your marine-biologist dad who was widowered when his wife got eaten by a blue whale and who's taught you everything he knows, miles of sandy coastline, and, hey, how 'bout a couple of pets? Let's say a huge seal who plays football, a lizard named Fred who speaks a rudimentary kind of English -- kind of grunties with inflection -- and Galileo, a pelican who, well, who just knows what to do and when to do it. Now, let's say you're a pre-pubescent girl called Nim, because we can't be letting periods and such stain the story. So the question is -- what are you going to pack for this tomboy adventure?
Lemme give you some advice, kids. First and foremost, whatever else you leave behind, make sure you've got a decent script that sees the relationship between story, plot and character and can come up with better dialogue than "Nobody invades my island and gets away with it." Which is a line spoken aloud by said tomboy -- spoken aloud, I repeat, to no one. Dad-of-tomboy is also prone to talking aloud to no one. And you know who talks aloud to no one? People who are knitting. People who are actors learning their lines. And lunatics.
And speaking of loonies, now's the time to wonder where Jodie Foster fits in? Well, kiddie-kins, it turns out tomboy Nim loves to read, especially the series of Indiana Jones-ish adventure stories featuring ruffty-tuffty Alex RoperRover. And then it turns out those books are written by Jodie, aka Alexandra RoperRover, who is as far from an adventurer as she is from conquering comic timing. The writer is agoraphobic, arachnophobic and generally zoophobic, microbiophobic, mysophobic, and undoubtedly a few more phobics as well. By a series of totally implausible plot devices, Roper the writer exchanges a series of eMails with Nim the child left on her own by her dad who just has to discover a new protozoan so he can name it after his daughter -- just in case she manages to survive alone on an island dominated by an active volcano in the monsoon season and subject to a posse of unscrupulous property developers who want Nim's Island for their own dirty capitalist gain.
It doesn't surprise me at all that co-writer/directors Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin paid their dues on episodic television.
Bon voyage!
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 05/23/2008 09:06:50 |
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Demisemicenturian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 05/23/2008 : 01:00:28
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Nim's Island
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
Alex Roper
It's Alex Rover, geddit?
You are right though that the nice premise is not utilised well at all. Far too many moments are corny and/or over-convenient, especially everything involving the animals. Talking to themselves is the least of the film's problems, since all of the protagonists spend a lot of time alone.
On the plus side, the Alex(ander) Rover moments are done reasonably well, and using the same actor as the father works well on a couple of levels. |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 05/23/2008 : 09:04:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
Nim's Island
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
Alex Roper
It's Alex Rover, geddit?
I knew that!
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Nim's Island
