Nim's Island

Jodie Foster stars as an agoraphobic hypochondriac who writes adventure books featuring an Indiana Jones-type action hero (Gerard Butler) in this adaptation of Wendy Orr’s young-adult novel about facing your fears and becoming your own hero. When a young tree-hugger (Abigail Breslin) living in a high-tech bamboo hut on a South Pacific island e-mails her beloved storybook star for help in finding her lost-at-seas father (also Butler), the paranoid writer decides to battle the big, bad world and save the day. Co-writers/co-directors Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett give the film a slow pace, and Breslin’s scenes are trite—but Foster’s zany slapstick comedy steals the show.