MOVIE NEWS: Nanny McPhee Returns

Editor’s note: we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for a word from OWL’s assistant editor, Kendra Brown. (Craig will be back next week.) Enjoy!

With a tagline like “Who’s your nanny?”, I was skeptical about the new movie Nanny McPhee Returns. Okay, really skeptical. But the stern-looking nanny with the moles and unibrow might just have won me over this time. She’s no Mary Poppins, but Nanny McPhee’s got some serious magic up her sleeve in her latest movie, which opens in theatres today.

This movie is the sequel to 2005’s Nanny McPhee. This time around, the magical nanny’s here to help Isabel Green, a mother looking after her husband’s farm and their three badly-behaved children — Norman, Megsie, and Vincent — while he’s off at war. The snobby cousins from the city are coming to stay and the children’s underhanded uncle is plotting to steal the family farm. Chaos ensues and it becomes clear that Isabel is in need of Nanny McPhee’s magic.

So McPhee appears right on cue with her five lessons to teach and her one very important rule: when you need her but don’t want her, she must stay. When you want her but no longer need her, she must go.

Here are a few observations about the movie:

1. It’s got an all-star cast. The movie is full of award-winning actors, many who have appeared in at least one of the Harry Potter movies — like Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall), Emma Thompson (Professor Trelawney), and Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort). The young actors were excellent as well. Personally, I was a big fan of Rosie Taylor-Ritson as Celia Gray, the spoiled cousin from the city with a love of clothes and the colour pink.

2. It’s silly. What else can you say about synchronized-swimming piglets? Well, aside from how darn cute they are. But make no mistake, I mean “silly” in the best sense of the word. From a belching bird to a baby elephant in a bed, this movie had me chuckling — and even wishing that I had my own Nanny McPhee to cast silly magical spells for me!

3. It’s heart-warming. This is a movie full of laughs, tears, and lessons learned. In fact, there are so many touching scenes that I could tell you about, but I hate to spoil it for you. Let’s just say that I was thankful to have a tissue on hand. But don’t worry — I laughed way more than I cried, thanks to all the silliness I mentioned above.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie. It was cute, funny, and charming. I have to admit, I never had a chance to see Nanny McPhee, but I think I just might now.

Have you seen Nanny McPhee? Are you planning to go see this movie? If you do, come back here and tell us what you think!

Kendra, owlblog@owlkids.com