Silly story sinks 'Nim's Island'

The positive, self-esteem-building message of the family adventure film "Nim's Island" is simply stated as "Be the hero of your own story."

Notice that it doesn't say good story.

"Nim's Island," based on the 2002 book by Wendy Orr, offers three heroes, each with his/her own story -- a dumb and dumbed-down, dramatically dull story where the characters seem to talk in comic strip word balloons.

They say aloud everything they're thinking, everything they're writing, and everything they're reading.

So we get scenes where we hear one person reading an e-mail aloud to herself, but we already know what it says, because we just heard the writer saying it out loud as she wrote it. Duhhhhhh.

The first story belongs to Nim, a precocious little girl played by Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin. She lives on a secret island in the South Pacific with her scientist daddy, Jack (Gerard Butler).

Years earlier, as Nim explains to us in a cartoon rendering, her mommy was apparently gobbled up by a giant blue whale that panicked over seeing a pirate ship approach.

Nim wanders around the island being "island-schooled" by Mother Nature and her buddies, a sea lion, a pelican and a hissing lizard. Her idyllic existence becomes threatened by capitalist buccaneers who intend to turn her tropical paradise into a haven for slobby, overweight tourists who litter. Nim must stop them all by herself, which brings us to the second story.

It belongs to single dad Jack, who, for reasons that will not be acceptable to most responsible parents, leaves Nim alone on the island for two days while he goes looking for glowing plankton. At sea, a storm cripples his boat and knocks out his communications gear. Only his scientific knowledge and Nim's pet pelican -- delivering a tool belt to him by "air mail" -- can save him.

The third story takes place in San Francisco where adventure novelist Alexandra Rover (Oscar winner Jodie Foster) is trying to finish her next book about the fearless exploits of Indiana Jones wannabe, Alex Rover. Unlike her literary namesake, Alexandra is a germaphobe, who hasn't left her apartment in a few millennia.

These stories intersect when Alexandra sends an e-mail to scientist Jack, asking for information about the volcano on his island. Instead, she gets lonely Nim, who, thinking she is THE Alex Rover, pleads for her hero to come and help her. Reluctantly, she agrees.

The weird part of this story, and something never addressed by the married director/writer team of Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett, is that when Nim reads the adventures of Alex Rover, she sees her dad in the role, dressed in Davy Crockett duds. When Alexandra visualizes Alex Rover, she sees him as Nim's dad, too!

So Alexandra finally meets Jack near the movie's end, don't you think she'd be a little weirded out that he looks just like the imaginary character she carries on conversations with back in San Francisco?

"Nim's Island" is a lushly photographed adventure, one equipped with a modest but effective symphonic score by Patrick Doyle. Despite that, the movie looks and sounds good, the dual directors have fashioned an astonishingly lackluster story where the comic devices and emotional touchstones have been scaled back to nearly perceivable levels.

The movie never achieves the beguiling sense of whimsy that its characters and plot clearly intend to evoke. This film is at best innocuously harmless and would be a great time killer for young, indiscriminating viewers who will latch on to the concept of a little girl fending for herself in a world where the most threatening things are knee scrapes and port-a-potties on a pristine beach.

But shouldn't good family movies be something more than merely good time killer.

"Nim's Island"

2 stars

Starring: Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler.

Directed by: Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin.

Other: A Fox Walden release. Rated PG. 96 minutes.