Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Return to Nim's Island Blu-ray Movie Review

Little Girls Grow

Reviewed by Michael Reuben July 10, 2013

The 2008 film Nim's Island starred Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler and Abigail Breslin and, as aptly described in Martin Liebman's review, was a charming family film that delighted audiences around the world. For reasons known only to itself, the production company, Walden Media, chose to make the sequel as an Australian film, recasting most of the principal parts with players from Down Under and seeking financing from the Queensland government. The result was released theatrically in Australia, but in America it played on the Hallmark Channel in March 2013, before being issued on DVD and Blu-ray as a Wal-Mart exclusive. Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble helped fund the release, which probably explains why commercials play before the disc loads. (I won't add to the advertising by naming the products, but both have obvious placement in the film.)

Based on a separate novel entitled Nim at Sea by author Wendy Orr, Return to Nim's Island is set some years after the events of Nim's Island and provides a much expanded role for the young boy from the cruise ship, Edmund, whom Nim met in the latter part of the film. It is Edmund who returns to the magical place of which he has been dreaming all these years. Both he and Nim are now teenagers, and the story focuses on them, relegating the adult drama that played such an important role in the first film to secondary status. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but anyone expecting to repeat the experience of the first Nim's Island will be disappointed, given the cast changes and the absence of Jodie Foster's Alexandra Rover character. The torch of adventure that Alexandra and her fictional creation, Alex Rover, carried in Nim's Island has now been passed to Edmund and Nim.

Nim is now played by Bindi Irwin, daughter of the late Steve Irwin of Crocodile Hunter fame. Despite a number of unkind remarks at IMDb, I found Bindi Irwin to be appropriately cast for the teenage Nim, who opens the film swimming underwater with her beloved friend and pet sea lion, Selkie. In this film, Nim has become a kind of action heroine inspired by the fictional creation, Alex Rover, created by a female writer (who, we learn at one point, is traveling in an exotic locale researching her next book, obviously cured for good of her agoraphobia). As Nim nimbly traverses the obstacle course surrounding the island home she shares with her father, Jack (now played by Matthew Lillard), she is the image of a girl at the tail end of childhood, utterly at home in her beloved island surroundings and perhaps overly confident that things will never change.

Jack knows otherwise. Developers from the mainland, The Buccaneer Resort Company, have persuaded the Queensland government to let them build a theme park on the island. Word has just arrived from Jack's father-in-law (Chris Haywood) that surveyors will put ashore at week's end. Jack has only a few days to sail to Brisbane and convince the relevant minister (Andrea Moor) that his research on protozoa is important enough to justify declaring the island a protected habitat.

Nim has a better idea. She's sure she can find at least three endangered species on the island, which is all she needs to have the region designated a preserve. In Jack's absence, she plans to scour the island for animals on the endangered list.

Meanwhile, in Brisbane, teenage Edmund (now played by Toby Wallace, who supplies the film's emotional depth) has been saving every penny to charter a boat that will get him back to Nim and her island. His home life is miserable, with parents who argue constantly. The boat Edmund hires over the internet is captained by a disreputable lout named Booker (John Waters), whose real pursuit turns out to be poaching rare animals for sale on the black market. Booker's crew are his two sons: the pretty and useless one, Ben (Jack Pearson), who is his father's favorite; and the younger, industrious one, Frankie (Sebastian Gregory), who resents that their father routinely slips and refers to the business as "Booker & Son", singular.

Edmund's less-than-practical plan is to let Booker's boat bring him within rowing distance of the island, then slip away in the night on an inflatable raft. He assumes that Booker will just turn back to Brisbane, but instead the old reprobate follows the coordinates that Edmund gave him and lands on the island for a poaching run. Inevitably, Booker & Son(s) cross paths with Nim and her various animal companions, and the results alternate between comical and menacing.

But before that happens, Nim and Edmund reconnect, and despite Nim's understandable suspicions at this strange boy's sudden appearance on her island, they end up cooperating in the effort to document endangered species. Edmund's lack of experience in the wild is a drawback, but the two find a common frame of reference, since they're both devoted fans of the Alex Rover books.

An additional and largely dispensable character is Jack's lab assistant, Felix (Nathan Derrick), a control freak who seems out of place in an untamed island wilderness. Before leaving for the mainland, Jack advises him to "embrace the chaos". By the time Jack returns, having been summoned back by an urgent call from Nim, Felix has done just that.

Return to Nim's Island Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Return to Nim's Island was shot digitally with the Arri Alexa (according to IMDb) or a Panavision Genesis (as suggested by the credits). Either way, the image on ARC Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray has obviously been taken from digital files color-corrected and edited in post-production, because the image has the smooth, clean and noise-free appearance of digital photography with no intervening analog stage. Cinematographer Judd Overton's lighting is designed to maximize the impression of a sun-drenched tropical paradise (and, I suspect, to minimize any teen-related complexion issues), and it also helps to blend the location footage with the sets constructed to simulate portions of the island. The image may occasionally strike some viewers as overbright, but the brightness never comes at the expense of detail, whether it is in the features of the actors or, more importantly, the detailed marking of the many lizards, reptiles and insects that inhabit the island, or the delicate shadings and textures of the sea lion Selkie's skin, or the feathers of the many exotic birds (some of which, admittedly, are animated). The relatively brief Brisbane scenes are slightly darker, and they make it clear that the contrast levels are properly set, as well as the black levels. The latter are also well displayed in Edmund's night escape from Booker's boat, where both the sky and the sea reveal shades of deep black.

Banding and other artifacts, including compression anomalies were nowhere to be seen. This is an impressive job from ARC.

Return to Nim's Island Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

From the opening frames, when Nim and Selkie are swimming underwater and the sounds of the sea and of Selkie's presence rumble all around, the Blu-ray's DTS-HD MA 5.1 establishes an effective sonic presence for Nim's environment. Above the surface, the island is represented by wind, trees, animal and insect noises and lapping waves when characters are near the shore. For the brief period that Edmund is on Booker's boat, the surrounding waves are the main accompaniment. The Brisbane cityscape is positively ordinary by comparison, especially since most of those scenes are indoors. Dialogue is always clear, and the score by Nerida Tyson-Chew (Anacondas: The Search for the Blood Orchid) strikes just the right amount of swashbuckling tone to call Alex Rover's spirit to mind.

Return to Nim's Island Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Return to Nim's Island is the first Blu-ray I have ever reviewed that plays nothing but ads at startup: a promo for the Hallmark Channel, followed by two commercials for consumer products. Fortunately, all of them can be skipped with the chapter forward or top menu buttons.

The Blu-ray jacket advertises "Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes" and a trailer, but the trailer is nowhere to be found. The following items are too short to qualify as featurettes in my book. They're more like short promotional spots to be aired in anticipation of a TV broadcast.

• Animal's Blog (2:12): Bindi Irwin introduces viewers to the animal cast, primarily the two sea lions who play "Selkie".



• Bad Guy's Blog (2:31): The Booker Brothers (a/k/a Jack Pearson and Sebastian Gregory) hijack the "blog" to give their side of the story.



• Bindi's Bday (2:02): A fourteenth birthday party at Australia Zoo.



• Blowhole Cave (1:46): The location shoot for the film's impressive waterfall sequence.



• Byron Bay Blog (2:16): The gorgeous location that doubled for the island's waterfront.



• CBS Special (1:25): Bindi Irwin's PSA on behalf of wildlife. It's hard to say which is more poignant, that she invokes her father as her favorite teacher or that she's cuddling a sleepy koala while she does so.



• Day 1 Blog (1:35): This probably should have been listed first.



• Edmund's Blog (2:29): Toby Wallace talks about the character of Edmund.



• Felix's Blog (2:24): Nathan Derrick talks about the character of Felix.



• Final Blog (2:17): A kind of behind-the-scenes gag reel.

Return to Nim's Island Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Return to Nim's Island is the sort of basic adventure fare for young people that Disney used to turn out on a regular basis in the glory days under Uncle Walt. Walden Media seems determined to fill that need today, and it still exists, even if the audience for it skews somewhat younger. Today's fourteen-year-olds are more likely to want something a little edgier, but pre-teens can still enjoy a well-told yarn, especially when the production values are high, the location is exotic and the heroine is appealing. Young girls in particular should enjoy having a female action hero who saves the boy from falling off a cliff. It's a role reversal that's overdue. Highly recommended.