Eine zauberhafte Nanny - Knall auf Fall in ein neues Abenteuer

Emma Thompson once again pens and stars in the candy-coloured film adaptation of the children's' books by Christianna Brand, following a very strict and very ugly nanny who brings order and manners to a household full of naughty children. This outing sees the titular character nursing a farmhouse family whose father is off at war. The mother, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal is obliged the sell the land to her nasty brother (Rhys Ifans), a slimy character who will not rest till he gets his way. Meanwhile the children's' vile London cousins come to stay - two little brats who bawk at the state of the earthy farm abode.

Enter Nanny McPhee - an otherworldly being who appears when a family needs her most - squashed-nosed and snaggle-toothed, she calmly teaches the children five important lessons, though when things get out of hand she must employ the same supernatural technique of setting down her walking stick as she did in her previous adventure, and to spectacular effect. Nanny McPhee attempts to set the household to rights using these very methods, while the family struggle on with their visitors and hope against hope that their father will return.

Thanks to Emma Thompson's involvement, the film boasts a impressive array of British thespians including Maggie Smith, Ewan McGregor and Ralph Fiennes as a senior WW2 army officer. Though characterisation is hardly profound in a story such as this, each actor has their moment to shine - and Gyllenhaal, as the young mother, sports a flawless British accent and conveys her trademark maternal emotion when needs be. Production values are stellar, with all the period details on display. The film whisks along at a nice pace and never gets bogged down in one place - Thompson's adaptation is wrought with real warmth and wit, and once again she works wonders on-screen under layers of prosthetics, with every wry glance and raise of the eyebrow worthy of a laugh.

Setting the story of against the backdrop of World War II is very smart move - the 'big bang' in the title referring to the imminent threat of bombings during this time period. This gives the film a foundation of realism that the previous movie lacked....however, there's little room left for war time misery in the thematic threads of this story - you're more like to find a group of piglets doing synchronised swimming than any sign of a swastika.

Ultimately this is a family film, written for children - talking to them, not at them and carrying a very sensitive message at its heart. There are no double-entendres for the adults the snigger at, this is harmless entertainment at its best. It may not be a new classic but it's nice to see something like this making its way to our screens during the Easter break.

The immensely talented Emma Thompson returns to play and write the story of the ultimately wonderful yet outwardly repulsive nanny of the film's title, who assists another desperate single parent by taming their mischievous bunch of spirited youngsters.

The lovely Mrs Green (a perfectly charming Maggie Gyllenhaal) becomes burdened with looking after the family estate, a farm in the English countryside, and her sister's children (Eros Vlahos and Rosie Taylor-Ritson) as well as her own (Asa Butterfield, Oscar Steer and Lil Woods) when her husband (a wordless yet productive Ewan McGregor) goes to war.

The children take advantage of her current frenzied state by squabbling, playing dangerously, making a mess of the house and just generally misbehaving. There is also her scheming brother-in-law Phil (Rhys Ifans at his erratic, despicable, scraggly best) seizing opportunities to prise the ownership of the farm out of her hands, and into those of two ghastly female brutes (a spine-tingling pair of Katy Brand and Sinead Matthews actually evoke sympathy for the villainous Phil) who are relentlessly terrorising him.

To add to her stress, her elderly employer Mrs Docherty (a delightfully senile Maggie Smith) cannot be left alone in her own shop, for fear of disaster.

These are all perfect conditions for the snag-toothed hag with that distinctive silhouette to walk into, and she does just as things are at their most chaotic.

There is no doubt that the cast are superb, and the undisputed highlight of the whole picture. Thompson's reprisal of the role is a joy to behold, with all of the wisdom and subtlety that we saw before, but this time showing more of a range as she experiments with comic moments and more human emotions. Here we also begin to see more of the extent of her mysteriousness. The children also have wonderful chemistry, and emit infinite sparkling charm and innocence with every frame.

Though if only Thompson's acting was again as sharp as her writing, or if only director Kirk Jones had also returned to the project to guide her. The new setting is quite unsuitable, and derails the film in many ways. Gone is the cosy small English village of the original. Gone also is the simplicity, the warmth, the storytelling magic that seeps through from Christianna Brand's original storybooks. These are all sorely missed, as well as those wonderful original characters – Mr Brown, Aunt Adelaide, Evangeline, Mrs Blatherwig, Simon... – and the outstanding actors who played them with such liveliness – Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury, Kell Macdonald, Imelda Staunton, Thomas Sangster... – who inarguably surpass the new faces, however delightful they may be. It might have been thought that bringing them all back would have been tacky, but that would merely have been more faithful to the books, in which Nurse Matilda makes recurring visits to the Brown household after the children have gone back to their old ways. There is however a single scene containing this precious nuance and poignancy, with Ralph Fiennes excelling as a distant father hardened by the war.

Another of the original 2005 film's many virtues was its wealth of sub-plots and dimensions. Clearly this multi-layered quality has been attempted to replicate, but here the layers that have been added on top of the children's lessons are incredibly hackneyed and childish. It is of course a children's film, but Nanny McPhee had an appeal to adults as well as children, while Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is more juvenile than it needs to be. Phil's efforts to obtain the farm for his tormentors is a typical side-narrative seen countless times earlier, as is that of the long-last father gone to war. Indeed the incorporation of World War II shows enormous misjudgement, with the heavily restricting boundaries of a film for small children preventing the huge event from being done justice.

The nauseatingly corny and clichéd excuse for a climax is the icing on the cake of Susanna White's horribly naive direction, which unfortunately – together with Thompson's rather sloppy script – represses her and the rest of the remarkably adept cast, tragically capping their potential.

Still, it makes for some amiably enjoyable kids fodder, and thankfully it did not keep Thompson from finishing her role in the Harry Potter series.

Not having seen Nanny McPhee 1, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised.

The film was very easy to get into and the story and plot were well written and set.

The actors young and old performed brilliantly making the whole thing enchanting and a highly believable fantasy.

The special effects were very well done and the comedy in it was delightful. I took my children with me, aged 5, 12, 15 and 18 and they all loved it too, with lots of laugh out loud moments and lots of smiles throughout.

All in all a very good film and I recommend it highly.

If you're going to see it I suggest you take all the family. Its a definite must see for all ages and you'll not be disappointed.

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is a personal project for Emma Thompson, starring and writing both the 2005 original and this sequel. She has an obvious love for this children's franchise and the novels of Christianna Brand. Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang was met with almost universal critical acclaim upon its initial release in the UK.

Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a stressed out mother to Norman (Asa Butterfield), Megsie (Lil Wood) and Vincent (Oscar). Her husband (Ewan McGregor) is fighting in the Second World War and the family farm is suffering financial troubles. When Isabel's spoilt brat nephew and niece, Cyril (Eros Vlahos) and Celia (Rosie Taylor-Ritson) arrive from London they clash with her hardy county children: it is clear Isabel needs help. Luckily Nanny McPhee (Thompson) comes to disciple the children, teach them important life lessons and help save the farm from being sold by the dastardly Uncle Phil (Rhys Ifans).

Nanny Mcphee and the Big Bang is clearly aimed for young children and director Susanna White (who is known for television work on Bleak House and Generation Kill) attempts to keep a childish, playful tone throughout the film. This is shown in some of the set designs, like the pig scratchier, and the use of CGI animals. Many of the set pieces in the film felt like being from a cartoon. Young children will enjoy this sequel and there are strong moral messages such as working together and learning to share which parents will want to encourage. Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is perfectly light and fluffy for boys and girls. The humour of the film is aimed at a young audience, focusing on poo and burping gags and general slapstick, which makes it harder to appeal to teens and adults. The children do grow as characters and slowly become more likable with Thompson and White looking beyond the stereotypes. Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is a very British, quaint family film with it period, rural setting. This film is also the type of sequel where you do not need or any knowledge of the previous film. Yet the plot is basically a cross between Mary Poppins and a standard plot of someone trying to take property from the rightful owner through sabotage. Plus the filmmakers did not try hard enough to allow adults to enjoy the film as much as children would. Less poo gags and more swimming pigs for next time is my advice.

Thompson obviously enjoys her role and she did well in her performance as a hard but fair magical woman with a dead-pan delivery. She knows exactly what she wants to do as Nanny McPhee. Gyllenhaal offers a good performance and pulls off a decent English accent. Despite the over-the-top nature of the film, Gyllenhaal plays her character straight as a mother who is simply snowed under. The rest of the main cast are caricatures, with the child actors showing promise. But other performances did not fit well, like Sam Kelly as the Air Warrant. There are some cameos from big name actors like Ralph Fiennes and McGregor to smaller name actors like Bill Bailey, a talented comedian who is best known to American as the desk sergeant in Hot Fuzz. He was quite funny as a stereotypical farmer.

It's only when you need her and not want her, that she appears, and only when you want her but no longer need her, does she go away. It's been 5 years since the first Nanny McPhee film burst onto the silver screen, and now a second film comes at a time during the school holidays to provide the little ones some entertaining, family friendly fare with good moral messages to boot. Emma Thompson reprises her role as the magical nanny with facial disfigurements that disappear one at a time, each time she imparts values to children, and here she has 5 to teach the little ones to behave.

Like its predecessor, Nanny McPhee appears to assist Maggie Gyllenhaal's Mrs Green, a war time wife whose husband (Ewan McGregor) has been off to war and has only corresponded back home through snail mail. Being the current breadwinner and finding great difficulty in controlling her children Vincent (Oscar Steer), Norman (Asa Butterfield) and Megsie (Lil Woods), her problems compound when they are joined by their cousins Cyril (Eros Vlahos) and Celia (Rose Taylor-Ritson) who hail from the city, and a clash of attitudes spell even more trouble for the harried Mrs Green. But not if Nanny McPhee can help it, and does so in a jiffy.

Set mostly in and around the Green farm which the children's uncle Phil (Rhys Ifans) as chief baddie who tries hard to get Mrs Green to sell half her ownership so as to bail him out of gambling debts, McPhee gets to impart lessons learnt through manufactured incidents on the farm and allows her magic to be weaved even on piglets, which will probably delight the younger audience as they do strange things like climbing trees and synchronized swimming. In some ways, the lessons here somehow paled from the earlier film, and the last lesson happened more like a matter of fact rather than one properly planned out, though they do enough to allow some nifty special effects laden scenes to be played out.

The children in the film brought about fine performances and are able to hold their own against the likes of Maggie Gyllenhaal, and even the cameos of McGregor and especially Ralph Fiennes, who boomed with much stature as Lord Gray of the War Office and in that short scene, provided enough pathos and a key plot element as to why the Green's cousins came to live with them on the farm. Comedy came in the form of Maggie Smith's senile Mrs Docherty, though it was a mix of hits and misses with the latter taking unfortunate dominance.

I suppose Nanny McPhee can be an enduring franchise if the younger audience embrace it as the less flashier franchise series of say, Harry Potter and even Twilight. After all, it has good moral lessons to impart, and has a feel good element about it, on one hand being light weight in treatment, yet packing some punch in its messages. Stay tuned during the end credits too for an animated sequence that's too beautifully done to miss, and for the sharp eyed viewer, let's see if you can spot a moment of goof in the film that has something to do with the film being flipped left to right. Recommended for children, and adults alike.