Nim's Island

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Nim's Island

PG

Released Apr 4, 2008

1h 34m

Kids & Family

Adventure

Comedy

Fantasy

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

53%

Tomatometer

105 Reviews

46%

Popcornmeter

100,000+ Ratings

Life is an adventure for a courageous youngster named Nim (Abigail Breslin), who lives on an exotic island with her marine-biologist father. and a menagerie of animal friends. When Nim's father goes missing, she turns to the only person she knows who can help her: adventurer Alex Rover (Gerard Butler). But what she doesn't know is that Alex Rover is really Alexandra (Jodie Foster), a timid recluse. Though faint of heart, Alexandra must find the courage within herself to come to Nim's aid.

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Critics Consensus

Despite good intentions, Nim's Island flounders under an implausible storyline, simplistic stock characters, and distracting product placement.

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Karl French

Financial Times

This film wants to be cute but is instead nauseatingly twee, and features what is by a great distance the weakest performance of Foster's career.

Oct 7, 2018

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Nell Minow

Movie Mom

Rated: B+

Feb 14, 2012

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Drew Toal

Time Out

Rated: 3/5

Nov 24, 2011

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David Griffiths

Subculture Entertainment

The film looks beautiful and the performances of Abigail Breslin and Jodie Foster easily overshadow some of the weaker performances of other cast members.

Rated: 2.5/5

Oct 29, 2024

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Rachel Wagner

Hallmarkies Podcast

A terrific family adventure

Apr 7, 2022

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Betsy Bozdech

Hollywood.com

In an era when so many kids' movies rely on special effects and flashy animation to grab an audience's attention an old-fashioned adventure like Nim's Island is a refreshing island breeze

Rated: 3/4

Sep 27, 2021

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Nadine C.

I may need to do a rewatch as an adult, but I remember loving this film so much as a young girl seeking adventure. I also learned the magic of Purell hand sanitizer through this movie haha

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

07/02/25

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June U

It was nice to see Jody Foster. I think it was trying to show that love can give the strength to overcome difficulties and everyone needs someone in a life, but the storyline wasn’t so great. Wanted to learn more about why the writer has such symptom.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

07/19/24

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Jordan J

Nims Island is a good film in its own right however it will only be better if they had done better in the writing stage.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

09/05/22

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Audience Member

This family-friendly take on Robinson Crusoe is okay. Nothing special but it has good acting, likable characters, a decent plot and okay development. Plus, Jodie Foster's character's agoraphobia suddenly becomes less of a laughing matter after the new decade we're currently in at the time I'm writing this had us being welcomed by a global pandemic. All of a sudden, her staying at home for months and ordering an absurd amount of hand sanitisers comes off more as being properly paranoid. It is sadly lacking in adventure, there's some stuff with tourists where our heroine pulls glorified Home Alone antics on them that feels pointless save for one brief moment, the comedy isn't anything remarkable and there's a weird production choice where it's obvious whenever the real animals are swapped for CGI doubles which don't look very good, given that this film came out in 2008. I don't really have anything else to say about this movie. If anything, I feel like I was grasping at straws to make this review not last more than a simple, laconic sentence. Still one of the more watchable family movies that came out at the time.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/23/23

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Audience Member

I enjoyed it as a kid.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/21/23

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Audience Member

A cute movie with fine performances. That borrows from Romancing the Stone.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/23/23

Full Review

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Jennifer Flackett

Director

Mark Levin

Director

Abigail Breslin

Nim

Jodie Foster

Alexandra Rover

Gerard Butler

Alex Rover

Michael Carman

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Synopsis

Life is an adventure for a courageous youngster named Nim (Abigail Breslin), who lives on an exotic island with her marine-biologist father. and a menagerie of animal friends. When Nim's father goes missing, she turns to the only person she knows who can help her: adventurer Alex Rover (Gerard Butler). But what she doesn't know is that Alex Rover is really Alexandra (Jodie Foster), a timid recluse. Though faint of heart, Alexandra must find the courage within herself to come to Nim's aid.

Director: Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin
Producer: Paula Mazur
Screenwriter: Mark Levin, Jennifer Flackett, Paula Mazur, Joseph Kwong
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Production Co: Walden Media
Rating: PG (Mild Adventure Action|Brief Language)
Genre: Kids & Family, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Apr 4, 2008, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 1, 2013
Box Office (Gross USA): $48.0M
Runtime: 1h 34m
Sound Mix: Dolby SRD, DTS, SDDS
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

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