When her scientist dad (Butler) disappears into a storm after taking a boating trip, Nim emails Alex and begs for help. What she doesn't know is that Alexandra Rover (Foster) is really a reclusive, timid and clumsy writer who rarely leaves her apartment and has few real adventures of her own.

After first ignoring the desperate emails from Nim, Alexandra finally braves going off to the island at the base of a volcano and offers to help the girl however she can. In the meantime, Nim's secret island is being invaded by an unscrupulous cruise ship owner and his crew, who are exploiting the pristine beaches and untouched wildlife for high-paying tourists.

The volcano on the island is also more active than ever before, and as day after day passes without any word from her father, Nim gets more nervous. She knows things will be better once her hero arrives, but she has no idea that Alex is really Alexandra.

Foster's child

It's been a long time since the two-time Academy Award winner has tried a comedy, much less something that has her falling out of a rowboat, getting tangled up in a Stairmaster and hanging out of a helicopter. This is Foster's wild child coming back, much as in the first Freaky Friday, back in 1976, and audiences can once again appreciate that the actress can be funny. Ironically, the young version of Foster would be perfect to play the role of Nim, but Breslin makes a suitable replacement. A burgeoning superstar in her own right, the 11-year-old Breslin was nominated for an Oscar last year for Little Miss Sunshine, and she has a career destined to follow in the footsteps of Foster.

Butler is delightful as the nebbishy scientist father, and equally great as the action hero in Foster's imagination. He's almost unrecognizable in the various parts, and it isn't until the credits that it's clear he's doing both roles.

Inevitably, it is the animals that make a fantasy film like this, and the expressive 400-pound sea lion and the heroic pelican deserve top billing. However, the character that steals the movie is the unlikely bearded dragon Fred, which sits perched on Nim's shoulder for a majority of the movie. Not only is Fred expressive, but he really seems to change, chameleon-like, when the mood shifts in the story. The directors promise that computer graphics were used to enhance this real animal only when its lips were supposed to move and when it was sent flying through the air.

Wendy Orr's children's novel centers on a girl hero, but it's as much a boy's story, too. With all the tree-climbing and volcano-scaling and animal interaction, the film is going to satisfy both genders and a wide range of ages, too. Unfortunately, to keep the fantasy a bit more grounded, some of the characters, like Tom Sawyer, Long John Silver and a few of the imaginary friends in Nim's mind, were cut out of the film at the last minute, and the filmmakers promise they'll be included on the upcoming DVD.