Movies

An 11-year-old girl lives an un-Robinson-Crusoe-like existence on a South Seas island. She has a doting marine biologist father, a sea lion and a lizard for best friends, and an active volcano in her back yard. Could life possibly get any more dazzling?

Nim (Breslin) and her father, Jack (Gerard Butler), don't want anybody else on their island; they're protecting (or hogging) paradise. When a ship arrives on a weekly basis to bring provisions, Jack rows out to meet it.

Then Jack sets out by himself on a two-day excursion to track some new species of plankton. When a major storm batters both the island and Jack's boat, knocking out his radio, a worried Nim sends out a distress e-mail to Alex Rover, the author of her favorite series of adventure books.

Trouble is, Alex Rover is actually an agoraphobic San Francisco author (Jodie Foster) who hoards hand sanitizer and can barely step out her front door to get the mail. With her fictional adventurer (Butler again) brought to life and spurring her on, Alex walks, planes, buses and rows her way into the Pacific.

Directors Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin (who are also two of the writers) might have spent more footage reveling in the general coolness of Nim and her pre-peril island life. Better yet, if preteen girl empowerment is the goal, kick the Rovers out of the tale and have Nim figure out for herself how to bring dad home.