User Reviews

Emma Thompson once again pens and stars in the candy-coloured film adaptation of the children's' books by Christianna Brand, following a very strict and very ugly nanny who brings order and manners to a household full of naughty children. This outing sees the titular character nursing a farmhouse family whose father is off at war. The mother, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal is obliged the sell the land to her nasty brother (Rhys Ifans), a slimy character who will not rest till he gets his way. Meanwhile the children's' vile London cousins come to stay - two little brats who bawk at the state of the earthy farm abode.

Enter Nanny McPhee - an otherworldly being who appears when a family needs her most - squashed-nosed and snaggle-toothed, she calmly teaches the children five important lessons, though when things get out of hand she must employ the same supernatural technique of setting down her walking stick as she did in her previous adventure, and to spectacular effect. Nanny McPhee attempts to set the household to rights using these very methods, while the family struggle on with their visitors and hope against hope that their father will return.

Thanks to Emma Thompson's involvement, the film boasts a impressive array of British thespians including Maggie Smith, Ewan McGregor and Ralph Fiennes as a senior WW2 army officer. Though characterisation is hardly profound in a story such as this, each actor has their moment to shine - and Gyllenhaal, as the young mother, sports a flawless British accent and conveys her trademark maternal emotion when needs be. Production values are stellar, with all the period details on display. The film whisks along at a nice pace and never gets bogged down in one place - Thompson's adaptation is wrought with real warmth and wit, and once again she works wonders on-screen under layers of prosthetics, with every wry glance and raise of the eyebrow worthy of a laugh.

Setting the story of against the backdrop of World War II is very smart move - the 'big bang' in the title referring to the imminent threat of bombings during this time period. This gives the film a foundation of realism that the previous movie lacked....however, there's little room left for war time misery in the thematic threads of this story - you're more like to find a group of piglets doing synchronised swimming than any sign of a swastika.

Ultimately this is a family film, written for children - talking to them, not at them and carrying a very sensitive message at its heart. There are no double-entendres for the adults the snigger at, this is harmless entertainment at its best. It may not be a new classic but it's nice to see something like this making its way to our screens during the Easter break.

I don't know what the critics here were expecting, but from some of the reviews I've read it seems that it wasn't a kids' film. In short, this is a lovely, well-written, beautifully cast film that's executed with great affection and makes maximum use of its chocolate-box locations.

Emma Thompson, aside from having no little talent for scriptwriting, is savvy enough to understand that the real stars of this film are the children and, in particular, Asa Butterfield and Eros Vlahos as Norman and Cyril respectively.

Rhys Ifans shows what an accomplished comic actor he is, even if his performance as Uncle Phil seems to draw much, both in characterisation and delivery, from that of Matt Dillon's portrayal of Healy in There's Something About Mary.

There's a lovely turn from Maggie Smith as Mrs Docherty and a reassuringly exuberant performance from Sam Kelly.

If there's a lull, it's when the action moves away from its countryside setting, although the scene played between Vlahos and Ralph Feinnes works nicely.

At a little under an hour and fifty minutes, it's quite long for children, yet my five- and eight-year-olds sat transfixed throughout. And in the end, that should be the yardstick by which any film aimed at younger cinema-goers should be measured.

As to Thompson herself, she is sublime when required, understated when the surrounding action demands. The reviewer who likened her performance to that of Roger Moore does not, I would suggest, appreciate either the characterisation of the Nanny McPhee role (much can be, and is, portrayed by simple facial expressions) or the very real acting ability of our erstwhile Bond. Comedy isn't all about snappy one-liners and the ability to convey comedy simply by saying nothing is an art in and of itself.

In the final analysis, this is a better film than its predecessor. It is more lovingly-crafted, less fantastic in the literal sense and more sharply observed. Watch it for what it is - a modern take on the old Mary Poppins story - and you won't be disappointed.

If you've seen the first Nanny McPhee movie, then you know the premise of the second: A harried single parent (this time a woman played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) is overwhelmed by her three children plus two cousins from London who come to stay at her small farm. World War II is raging, her husband is somewhere in the battle theater, and her brother-in-law (Rhys Ifans) wants nothing more than to sell the family farm out from under her.

Just as poor Isabel Green wonders how she'll manage to make a payment on the tractor, get the crops in, keep her senile boss (Maggie Smith) from destroying the store, fend off Phil Green's efforts to get her to sign away her rights to the farm, and still take care of five children, Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson) arrives on the scene.

Nanny McPhee, of course, takes the children promptly in hand and wastes no time teaching them the lessons they need to learn. If Isabel and Phil learn something along the way, so much the better.

The script is fairly silly (penned by Emma Thompson, it's aimed at a very young audience), though it does have its occasional moments of cleverness and poignancy (and one especially silly moment that I must confess was hysterical no matter your age). There's also a heart-rending tie-in to the first film.

The acting is quite good though melodramatic (which, in fairness, is entirely appropriate here). As an aside, Maggie Gyllenhaal's English accent is pretty convincing! The children are just fine, but I must single out Eros Vlahos (who plays cousin Cyril) and Lil Woods (in the role of Megsie Green). Maggie Smith is, of course, her usual stellar self, and Emma Thompson manages to play a caricature of a character without overdoing it at all. A small part for Ralph Fiennes and a cameo from Ewan MacGregor cap off a very capable cast.

BOTTOM LINE: Nanny McPhee Returns was cute, but it wasn't all that good from my own perspective. I'll tell you, though, that every last four, five, and six year-old in the theatre giggled, gasped, laughed, and cooed right when they were supposed to. While I can't recommend this movie for your own grown-up (or even teen-agers') night out, your younger kids will just love it.

POLITICAL NOTES: Although Nanny McPhee Returns takes place during World War II and mentions of the war feature prominently, no details of the reasons for the fight or any political judgments whatsoever are made. Given the nature of that particular conflict, I'd say that there was some real skill exercised in writing about it!

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Nanny McPhee Returns is rated PG for "rude humor, some language and mild thematic elements." Frankly, children young enough to enjoy this movie take especial delight in rude humor like that exhibited here, and the mild thematic elements will likely be largely above their heads. Any real concerns should be easily addressed by Mom or Dad after the movie's over.

Emma Thompson takes us back to the colourful world of Nanny McPhee. This time Nanny McPhee has a mission with a new family. I loved the first movie. Not only was it a refreshing tribute to classics like Mary Poppins, but it had heart and magic and its world looked surreal, a splendid movie for the entire family.

Here too the world is just as colourful and surreal and looks like a fun place. Yes, even Isabel's muddy farm looks like an enjoyable place to live at. The creativity in writing and art direction amuses me, for example, watching those piglets lying in the scratch machine was cute and hilarious. The new animal characters, especially the baby elephant, are a delight. The lighting and slightly yellowish tint gives 'Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang' a very sunny look. The humour works very well as it had me laughing out loud on various occasions.

However, unlike in the first movie, the story here felt rushed and there were some inconsistencies. The bomb sequence, as entertaining as it was, wasn't necessary and it only distracted from the main story. The child actors here are competent but their counterparts in the first film performed better. While the special effects here are very good they didn't appear as authentic.

Emma Thompson reprises the title role and she does a fine job. She mostly takes the backseat while letting the other actors perform. Maggie Gyllenhaal shows a knack for comedy and her English accent sounds authentic. Maggie Smith is a riot. Rhys Ifans does well as the greedy uncle.

'Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang' may not measure up to 'Nanny McPhee' but it's still a lot of fun and a good watch for the family. I was smiling after it finished (watch it through the closing credits as there's a very cute surprise).

The immensely talented Emma Thompson returns to play and write the story of the ultimately wonderful yet outwardly repulsive nanny of the film's title, who assists another desperate single parent by taming their mischievous bunch of spirited youngsters.

The lovely Mrs Green (a perfectly charming Maggie Gyllenhaal) becomes burdened with looking after the family estate, a farm in the English countryside, and her sister's children (Eros Vlahos and Rosie Taylor-Ritson) as well as her own (Asa Butterfield, Oscar Steer and Lil Woods) when her husband (a wordless yet productive Ewan McGregor) goes to war.

The children take advantage of her current frenzied state by squabbling, playing dangerously, making a mess of the house and just generally misbehaving. There is also her scheming brother-in-law Phil (Rhys Ifans at his erratic, despicable, scraggly best) seizing opportunities to prise the ownership of the farm out of her hands, and into those of two ghastly female brutes (a spine-tingling pair of Katy Brand and Sinead Matthews actually evoke sympathy for the villainous Phil) who are relentlessly terrorising him.

To add to her stress, her elderly employer Mrs Docherty (a delightfully senile Maggie Smith) cannot be left alone in her own shop, for fear of disaster.

These are all perfect conditions for the snag-toothed hag with that distinctive silhouette to walk into, and she does just as things are at their most chaotic.

There is no doubt that the cast are superb, and the undisputed highlight of the whole picture. Thompson's reprisal of the role is a joy to behold, with all of the wisdom and subtlety that we saw before, but this time showing more of a range as she experiments with comic moments and more human emotions. Here we also begin to see more of the extent of her mysteriousness. The children also have wonderful chemistry, and emit infinite sparkling charm and innocence with every frame.

Though if only Thompson's acting was again as sharp as her writing, or if only director Kirk Jones had also returned to the project to guide her. The new setting is quite unsuitable, and derails the film in many ways. Gone is the cosy small English village of the original. Gone also is the simplicity, the warmth, the storytelling magic that seeps through from Christianna Brand's original storybooks. These are all sorely missed, as well as those wonderful original characters – Mr Brown, Aunt Adelaide, Evangeline, Mrs Blatherwig, Simon... – and the outstanding actors who played them with such liveliness – Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury, Kell Macdonald, Imelda Staunton, Thomas Sangster... – who inarguably surpass the new faces, however delightful they may be. It might have been thought that bringing them all back would have been tacky, but that would merely have been more faithful to the books, in which Nurse Matilda makes recurring visits to the Brown household after the children have gone back to their old ways. There is however a single scene containing this precious nuance and poignancy, with Ralph Fiennes excelling as a distant father hardened by the war.

Another of the original 2005 film's many virtues was its wealth of sub-plots and dimensions. Clearly this multi-layered quality has been attempted to replicate, but here the layers that have been added on top of the children's lessons are incredibly hackneyed and childish. It is of course a children's film, but Nanny McPhee had an appeal to adults as well as children, while Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is more juvenile than it needs to be. Phil's efforts to obtain the farm for his tormentors is a typical side-narrative seen countless times earlier, as is that of the long-last father gone to war. Indeed the incorporation of World War II shows enormous misjudgement, with the heavily restricting boundaries of a film for small children preventing the huge event from being done justice.

The nauseatingly corny and clichéd excuse for a climax is the icing on the cake of Susanna White's horribly naive direction, which unfortunately – together with Thompson's rather sloppy script – represses her and the rest of the remarkably adept cast, tragically capping their potential.

Still, it makes for some amiably enjoyable kids fodder, and thankfully it did not keep Thompson from finishing her role in the Harry Potter series.

It's only when you need her and not want her, that she appears, and only when you want her but no longer need her, does she go away. It's been 5 years since the first Nanny McPhee film burst onto the silver screen, and now a second film comes at a time during the school holidays to provide the little ones some entertaining, family friendly fare with good moral messages to boot. Emma Thompson reprises her role as the magical nanny with facial disfigurements that disappear one at a time, each time she imparts values to children, and here she has 5 to teach the little ones to behave.

Like its predecessor, Nanny McPhee appears to assist Maggie Gyllenhaal's Mrs Green, a war time wife whose husband (Ewan McGregor) has been off to war and has only corresponded back home through snail mail. Being the current breadwinner and finding great difficulty in controlling her children Vincent (Oscar Steer), Norman (Asa Butterfield) and Megsie (Lil Woods), her problems compound when they are joined by their cousins Cyril (Eros Vlahos) and Celia (Rose Taylor-Ritson) who hail from the city, and a clash of attitudes spell even more trouble for the harried Mrs Green. But not if Nanny McPhee can help it, and does so in a jiffy.

Set mostly in and around the Green farm which the children's uncle Phil (Rhys Ifans) as chief baddie who tries hard to get Mrs Green to sell half her ownership so as to bail him out of gambling debts, McPhee gets to impart lessons learnt through manufactured incidents on the farm and allows her magic to be weaved even on piglets, which will probably delight the younger audience as they do strange things like climbing trees and synchronized swimming. In some ways, the lessons here somehow paled from the earlier film, and the last lesson happened more like a matter of fact rather than one properly planned out, though they do enough to allow some nifty special effects laden scenes to be played out.

The children in the film brought about fine performances and are able to hold their own against the likes of Maggie Gyllenhaal, and even the cameos of McGregor and especially Ralph Fiennes, who boomed with much stature as Lord Gray of the War Office and in that short scene, provided enough pathos and a key plot element as to why the Green's cousins came to live with them on the farm. Comedy came in the form of Maggie Smith's senile Mrs Docherty, though it was a mix of hits and misses with the latter taking unfortunate dominance.

I suppose Nanny McPhee can be an enduring franchise if the younger audience embrace it as the less flashier franchise series of say, Harry Potter and even Twilight. After all, it has good moral lessons to impart, and has a feel good element about it, on one hand being light weight in treatment, yet packing some punch in its messages. Stay tuned during the end credits too for an animated sequence that's too beautifully done to miss, and for the sharp eyed viewer, let's see if you can spot a moment of goof in the film that has something to do with the film being flipped left to right. Recommended for children, and adults alike.

First, I need to say we saw the first Nanny McFee film and loved it. We were hoping for the same charm in this film. Unfortunately, we found it lacking. We were quite ready to suspend reality and enjoy a magical nanny, but we didn't find the movie to have the humor and general upbeat styling we were expecting.

This film seemed to be in a great hurry to finish all the lessons Nanny wanted to teach without us ever knowing what they were. The lessons were taught after one incident of naughty behavior. No one, not even movie kids, learn a life lesson in one episode! Part of the charm in the first movie was that you were left to wonder if the lessons were learned due to the children learning and living them or from the magic of Nanny McFee. In the second movie, there is no question that magic has changed behavior, not a realization of why this new behavior is proper.

Less than half way through the movie, my 10 year old daughter leaned in to me and said, "This one isn't funny like the first one, is it?" She was quite right, as a whole, this wasn't a funny movie. There was too much mean-ness and too many dire situations for it to be considered funny.

This cast deserved better and Emma Thompson did not deliver a viable story. Though I must say, we LOVED Maggie Smith's character and her surprise revelation at the end.

This movie on it's own ranks a 4 or 5, but this movie as a sequel ranks only a 3.

Our family loved the charming first movie but this movie is just awful. The negative reviews already written recap the problems very well: Poor directing, plodding story, predictable outcomes, etc. Ghastly. Three additional criticisms not yet mentioned.

(1) Very confusing clothing and haircuts. Who would cast farm kids during WWII to wear polo shirts? That and Vince's mop haircut gave the feeling in the opening scene that this was a modern film with elements from American suburbs.

(2) On which planet does a fun children's film feature villains who extort characters with deadly threats of removing both kidneys...and worse? I'm not taking this film seriously but that's just too macabre.

(3) During the introduction to special features, Emma Thompson says that this is "An entirely new film." That is just so not true. Indeed, an early scene sets you up to expect to see a duplicate scene copied from the first movie. You get fooled but then a few seconds later you see the scene you expected anyway. The only thing original to this movie compared to the first is that pigs fly.

There are positive elements to this movie--beautiful country scenes, nice camera work, good acting by lesser characters--but not enough to warrant spending precious time to watch it.

Not having seen Nanny McPhee 1, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised.

The film was very easy to get into and the story and plot were well written and set.

The actors young and old performed brilliantly making the whole thing enchanting and a highly believable fantasy.

The special effects were very well done and the comedy in it was delightful. I took my children with me, aged 5, 12, 15 and 18 and they all loved it too, with lots of laugh out loud moments and lots of smiles throughout.

All in all a very good film and I recommend it highly.

If you're going to see it I suggest you take all the family. Its a definite must see for all ages and you'll not be disappointed.

Emma Thompson returns from the 2005 film "Nanny McPhee" for the sequel as she reprises the titular character of the movie in "Nanny McPhee Returns (formerly known as "Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang". The first movie was surprisingly good and was it was a pleasure to watch the movie. Now, the second movie has a different tale and how about it? It was great.

First, "Nanny McPhee Returns" is not set in a city but rather on the countryside. A mother who's husband is gone to war has three naughty children who helps her work in the farm. Suddenly, their cousins from the city had to stay with them for a while. Since they're environment is different, their way of living has to be different and so, they can't stand it and so trouble comes. With nothing else on hand, Nanny McPhee comes to the rescue to teach the children five lessons that would change their behavior forever.

From flying motorcycles to swimming pigs, "Nanny McPhee Returns" was still able to keep the magic pumping up from the first movie. This movie has more magical things than the first movie. But, the first movie has a stricter Nanny McPhee than the first one and the first one (I think) gives Nanny McPhee a harder job to handle them rather than handling the kids in the second movie.

Emma Thompson who previously portrayed Professor Trewlawney from the "Harry Potter" series denied to reprise her role in the final installments and instead chose to reprise "Nanny McPhee" back to the screen. She was still able to repeat her solemn character in this movie. Although Thompson was a bit less in depth on her acting, her acting can still be praised.

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the troubled mother who has been encountering endless problems in her life. Here, she uses British accents on her lines and her acting was perfect. Maggie Smith who also played Professor McGonagall in the "Harry Potter" series plays Mrs. Docherty who is a friend of Mrs. Green, the troubled mother. She plays in more of a funnier role than her previous ones and her acting was great, brilliant. The actors/actresses who played the naughty kids were also shockingly awesome. There's nothing wrong with the acting.

The special effects, the script and the cinematography were all stunning. The flying pigs scene was breathtaking and the script was perfectly written. The cinematography was not a problem at all. They were all mesmerizing.

In all, "Nanny McPhee Returns" is a good family adventure. It's still able to recreate the magic of the first film. It was brilliant and I recommend this to all families. I guarantee that most kids who see this film will try to see this film again. I had no regret watching this film. Overall, this movie gets 7 stars out of 10. Thanks for reading my review.

It's WWII Britain, and 2 spoiled rich kids (Rosie Taylor-Ritson, Eros Vlahos) are sent to their relatives in the countryside. Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is haggard running a farm and a store while her husband is away for the war. Her 3 children (Oscar Steer, Asa Butterfield, Lil Woods) clash with their rich bratty cousins. Meanwhile, brother Phil (Rhys Ifans) is trying to steal the farm to repay a gambling debt. In desperation, she calls in help from Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson). The formula is already known. Nanny McPhee teaches everybody lessons. Once the lessons are learned, Nanny McPhee leaves. "When you need me but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me but no longer need me, then I have to go."

Maggie Gyllenhaal's accent and the cartoonish countryside are somewhat off-putting. All the poo and all the syrup makes it all seem very sticky and uncomfortable. It is nice to see the combative kids turn likable friends. However, I didn't like brother Phil's story. He's a bad unnecessary distraction from the main lessons to be learned, and doesn't work as comic relief. I think the missing father is the biggest story for those kids once they start getting along. There is no need for the brother and his scheming. Then they drop a giant bomb on the whole thing. I don't really get it. It doesn't fit a kid's movie.

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is a personal project for Emma Thompson, starring and writing both the 2005 original and this sequel. She has an obvious love for this children's franchise and the novels of Christianna Brand. Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang was met with almost universal critical acclaim upon its initial release in the UK.

Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a stressed out mother to Norman (Asa Butterfield), Megsie (Lil Wood) and Vincent (Oscar). Her husband (Ewan McGregor) is fighting in the Second World War and the family farm is suffering financial troubles. When Isabel's spoilt brat nephew and niece, Cyril (Eros Vlahos) and Celia (Rosie Taylor-Ritson) arrive from London they clash with her hardy county children: it is clear Isabel needs help. Luckily Nanny McPhee (Thompson) comes to disciple the children, teach them important life lessons and help save the farm from being sold by the dastardly Uncle Phil (Rhys Ifans).

Nanny Mcphee and the Big Bang is clearly aimed for young children and director Susanna White (who is known for television work on Bleak House and Generation Kill) attempts to keep a childish, playful tone throughout the film. This is shown in some of the set designs, like the pig scratchier, and the use of CGI animals. Many of the set pieces in the film felt like being from a cartoon. Young children will enjoy this sequel and there are strong moral messages such as working together and learning to share which parents will want to encourage. Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is perfectly light and fluffy for boys and girls. The humour of the film is aimed at a young audience, focusing on poo and burping gags and general slapstick, which makes it harder to appeal to teens and adults. The children do grow as characters and slowly become more likable with Thompson and White looking beyond the stereotypes. Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang is a very British, quaint family film with it period, rural setting. This film is also the type of sequel where you do not need or any knowledge of the previous film. Yet the plot is basically a cross between Mary Poppins and a standard plot of someone trying to take property from the rightful owner through sabotage. Plus the filmmakers did not try hard enough to allow adults to enjoy the film as much as children would. Less poo gags and more swimming pigs for next time is my advice.

Thompson obviously enjoys her role and she did well in her performance as a hard but fair magical woman with a dead-pan delivery. She knows exactly what she wants to do as Nanny McPhee. Gyllenhaal offers a good performance and pulls off a decent English accent. Despite the over-the-top nature of the film, Gyllenhaal plays her character straight as a mother who is simply snowed under. The rest of the main cast are caricatures, with the child actors showing promise. But other performances did not fit well, like Sam Kelly as the Air Warrant. There are some cameos from big name actors like Ralph Fiennes and McGregor to smaller name actors like Bill Bailey, a talented comedian who is best known to American as the desk sergeant in Hot Fuzz. He was quite funny as a stereotypical farmer.

Emma Thompson inhabits a league of premier global female film stars including Juliet Binoche, Tilda Swinton, and the foremost among them, Meryl Streep. So how bad could a children?s film written by and starring her be? Surprisingly awful, it turns out. Nanny McPhee is a long series of lame excrement jokes, unimaginative plot devices and by-the-numbers vignettes of bad behavior followed by redemption. Nanny McPhee -the magical Super Nanny and Mary Poppins rip-off ?begins by teaching 5 quarrelling children the first of 5 lessons using physical torture to get them to stop the fisticuffs. At least these scenes broke up the initial first fifteen minutes of uninterrupted references to poop from various sources. After these enhanced interrogation techniques, McPhee uses her magical stick to call into being stupid swimming piglets, flying motorcycles with sidecars and to gain access to the halls of WWII power. The story line defaults back to magical intervention to get the children to behave instead of taking the musical cue from Poppins and using clever psychology and dance numbers. Gyllenhaal is marshmallow as a mother, Thompson doesn?t give herself any good lines and the kids are non-descript with the exception of the unlikely named Eros Vlahos who is fun to watch as snooty Cyril. In short, wait for Thompson to return to a dramatic or classical role where her acting chops are put to good use.

Nanny McPhee Returns (1:47, PG) — fantasy: fairy tales; 3rd string; sequel; OSIT romantics

"We're in the Land of Poo" says snotty little Cyril Gray, he of the golden Little Lord Fauntleroy tresses, as he gazes from the back of his chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce at his Aunt Isabel's farm, which, truthfully, is probably the biggest shithole in the history of the British Empire. Yes, it appears that the primary product of Deep Valley Farms is indeed manure. Despite this, its 3 cherubic urchins — Vincent, Norman, and Megsie Green — are improbably clean. They are the resentful hosts to Cyril and his even snottier, more spoiled sister Celia, sent to the English countryside during WW2 ostensibly for their own safety but, as we eventually see, mainly because their parents didn't want anything to do with them. The city and country cousins take 1 look at each other, and it's hate at 1st sight.

Isabel (Maggie Gyllenhaal, sporting quite a credible British accent) is overwhelmed — not least by even more icky, sticky substances everywhere she turns — and completely unable to cope. What she needs, the talking teapots assure her, is Nanny McPhee. Fortunately, that worthy (doughtily played by Emma Thompson, who also wrote the screenplay) materializes that night, in time to find the kids in the middle of a screaming rampage. She proceeds to administer the 1st of 5 valuable life lessons. For the incurably curious, let me spare you the need to see the movie: (1) no fighting, (2) share nicely, (3) help each other, (4) be brave, and (5) have faith.

These being typical children, of course they learn each of these trite platitudes as soon as it's uttered, internalize it, and thereafter behave accordingly. In less than 24 hours they're all BFFs. Calloo, callay!

In the other half of the plot, Isabel's hubby (flitful cameo by Ewan McGregor) is off to war, and his brother Phil (Rhys Ifans), deep in gambling debt, wants Isabel to sell the farm so he can get his half of the proceeds. Isabel isn't budging until Phil shows up with the fateful telegram from the War Office.

There's more along these lines. Tree-climbing pigs, a time-freezing crow named Mr. Edelweiss, a bomber helpfully labelled "Enemy Plane", Ralph Fiennes warming up for his future as Lord Voldemort by playing Cyril and Celia's cold and distant father, and a sad appearance by the wonderful Maggie Smith as a senile old storekeeper. Plus more manure.

Director Susanna White evidently told the entire cast that nobody over the age of 7 would ever see this movie, and so it would be necessary to ACT! ACT! ACT! PROJECT! Don't merely say, DEMONSTRATE! Let not mild surprise cross your visage when ASTOUNDED WONDERMENT is at your beck and call. Leave nuance at the door and go for VISIBILITY! Don't merely suggest, WHACK them over the head at every opportunity.

Composer James Newton Howard was evidently an enthusiastic participant in this monument to excessive obviousness, as well, since his score tried to tell the entire story even if you subtracted the pictures and dialog. For the most part, it's relentlessly perky, until we get to the sad scenes, when you can practically hear the violins whimpering and the oboes sobbing. And it never lets up.

Cynics will speculate on what horrible crime Nanny McPhee must have committed to have earned that über-homely visage, since she loses an ugly, hairy mole after the children learn each of Lessons 1 and 2, implying that she's working off some karmic debt doing penance with these whiny little brats. But then Lesson 3 comes along, and nothing happens to her face, giving idle minds (as possessed by anyone over age 8) something else to speculate about. (This is, believe me, more intellectual depth than the film itself provides.)

There is only 1 reason to see this film, and I'm going to give it away for free. It's the one piece of advice from Nanny McPhee that couldn't have been found in Reader's Digest: broccoli — try it with cheese.

Fortunately, there's lots of it in this movie — yet another icky, sticky substance available in abundance from one of the nation's leading sources of child abuse.

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang 2010 Watched Sep 21, 2021

Josie Gardiner's review published on Letterboxd: Nanny McFee was a great watch before. I'm not sure I watched this before but I need something light and hopefully funny. So I'm watching this child movie. I usually enjoy children's movies. Here we go. On with it then. Just checked the cast list has some great acting talents in this movie. I wonder what the kids are going to be like. They were gorgeous loveable actors.

This is the sweetest story of cousins in the war time when city children were sent into the country to be safe with their relatives. It is a clash of cultures with the posh city kids unable to get on with their country cousins until Nanny McPhee coming to the rescue with a wee bit of magic. How we love our happy ever afters.

Such an awesome magical ending. Children will just love this. When you want me be do not need me I must go.

I didn't have high expectations for this movie going in to watch it and it was predictable for any problem that came about.The storyline was good with the stuck up,rich kids eventually warming up and becoming humble,the whole farm story and the role Nanny McPhee played. The movie is entertaining from children and maybe some parents however there was nothing to really hold you to the movie.Certain movie just have you glued to it but this was not one of them.If you are over the age of 12,you will be able to predict most of this movie.It had its moments where the lessons were being taught and the whole drama about the farm which got your sympathy however that is all it got-sympathy. All in all,wait for this to come out on DVD and if the kids insist you take them,don't expect anything great.