Return to Nim's Island

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.

Yes, I was a little disappointed that the actors were different. I think all sequels should involve at least some of the same actors as the originals. I especially missed Jodie Foster in it. But there was, at least, reference to the charaiucter, saying she was in Bora Bora.

Contrary to other remarks here, I think Bindi did a fine job. In fact, I thought she was better than the Nim actress in the original movie.

This had a fun storyline and beautiful scenery. I like movies like this that take me on a virtual vacation.

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.

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.

I thought the first movie was interesting and fun to watch. But this one was not quite as good. First of all it is basically a stripped down version of the first one in that the first one integrates into the story a "fictional" character, Alex Rover, from Alexandria's novels. But nothing like that is done here. Also they wrote out Alexandria. In the first movie she added an extra dynamic to the movie because we got to see how her agoraphobia played out in contrast to Nim's adventurism. I don't recall for sure but I believe Alexandria hit it off with Jack but in the new movie it is like, where did she go?

Though the two movies have some continuity, it is obvious that there is some that is missing. For instance there are completely new actors portraying the characters. In the first movie both Nim and Jack spoke with an American accent. But in the 2nd movie, Jack speaks with one but Nim has sort of a British accent. That makes the story unbelievable when you have seen the first one. Especially considering that Jack is Nim's father. What happened between the two movies? Did Nim go live in the UK for a while?

If you have seen the first one, you will probably end up putting it in either part way through or after you see this one. But if you haven't seen the first one, then I think you would like this one. It's not a bad movie at all. Just disappointing that they didn't make it as interesting or really build on the previous one.