Return to Nim's Island

I'm learning how to embrace the chaos of life...love it! I was happy that Felix, the lovable nerd actually experiences victory. Bindi Irwin is well cast since in reality, she actually has real relationships with animals. The animals/nature all beautiful--educational and interesting to meet the endangered species, researcher's perspective, the birds, reptiles, sea lion,under water swim scenes, caves, all nicely photographed. Cool the way the animals intuitively help. A couple of funny, yet gratifying revenge scenes. The danger scenes are cool and the innocent coming of age romance is believable. Edmund's fighting parents make us root for him and the poachers fighting/sibling rivalry thing works. Love dancing with Selkie. The young girl scientist/ girl power thing is on point and current.

This movie is worse than the original, which wasn't even that good to begin with. The dialogue is bad. The effects are bad. Nothing is done well. Its just a bland and forgettable movie that isn't worth watching.

The thing that bothers me the most is the casted none of the original characters. Am I supposed to sit back and enjoy that each character does not match up with the previous movie? Jack should not be played by Matthew Lillard, and Bindi should not play Nim. Those characters should be played by the original actor and actress Gerard Butler and Abigail Breslin. And what happened to Jodi Foster's character? They just completely wrote out one of my favorite characters in the movie. I loved the original movie don't get me wrong, I watched the trailer for this movie and though to myself that it will be horrid and a waste of my time, the only reason I'm ranting about this is because of the fact my favorite characters were taken away.

Nim (Bindi Irwin) and her father Jack Rusoe (Matthew Lillard) are on the island doing biological research with their nerdy assistant Felix. Jack's father-in-law Grant informs them that developers are planning to build a resort on the island. Nim comes up with the idea to find three endangered species to save the island while her father goes back to the mainland to present to the government. Edmund runaways from his bickering parents and hires a boat to go back to the island. Booker and his sons Ben and Frankie operate the boat.

The actors are all new from the original. I don't want to be mean-spirited but Bindi Irwin is limited as an actress. She still fits the role in some sense. She brings her myopic focus on nature and she's pretty good at being a grumpy teenager. She and Toby Wallace have fun hate to start the teenie rom-com. However, her acting cannot take it any further. The poaching family is bothersome and takes the movie into the wrong direction. Whatever potential this movie started with is gone after the first half.

Apart from the presence of the wonderful Jodie Foster, the first Nim's Island had a well written, original plot with genuine tension and excitement. This sequel is a tedious, predictable load of trite nonsense, with cardboard cut-out characters, an almost complete absence of acting and plastic animals. Okay, the animals are real, but the sets are not. The plot (such as it is) is constructed entirely as a vehicle for Bindi Irwin, which ignores the unfortunate fact that Bindi could not act her way out of a three-sided room if she tried (which she doesn't, noticeably). She recites her lines as if from an autocue and has two stock expressions - sulky and slightly less sulky. Her love interest (eek - her character and his are aged 14!) is a rather more accomplished actor than she is, but presumably he had to audition for the part, while she obviously didn't. Matthew Lillard, who plays her father, never got out of first gear, and nor did the awfully naughty bad guys - who predictably got what was coming to them in the end (including, naturally, piles of bird poo on their heads). It was an afternoon I'll never get back, but at least I was able to catch up surreptitiously on Facebook ...