jm10701 Nanny McPhee is a surprisingly unpleasant movie. Not a single one of its characters is appealing at all, so I never cared what happened to any of them - especially the children.It's remarkable that the casting directors managed to find seven such unattractive and unlikeable children, who become not a bit less unappealing after their magical transformation by Nanny from monsters into angels. The ONLY character who is not actively repellent is the father, but he is so annoyingly irresponsible and ineffectual that his passive aggression makes him the least sympathetic of them all.His determination to remain forever dependent on his dead wife's monstrous aunt is especially disgusting. I'd have loved it if he HAD ended up in debtors' prison - which is exactly where he belonged - with his ugly, obnoxious children scattered among the dregs of Dickensian England. I suppose it's realistic that such a determinedly incompetent father would produce such repulsive children, but why make a movie about such a repulsive family?I marvel at the glowing reviews this movie gets. I did not like it at all. Fortunately I also had the superficially similar Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium to watch the same day - with its wholly delightful cast of characters and the most adorable child actor I've ever seen - to clean my palate of this sour, repellent movie.

haterofcrap I think this is a pretty decent flick for the whole family, probably not at the same level of masterpieces like "The Sound of Music" and "Mary Poppins", but at least it was much better than most of the so-called family films that Hollywood keeps producing in the recent years.For me, what made this movie work were the funny performances of each actor, particularly Colin Firth and Emma Thompson, who made this film a very enjoyable experience despite the silliness of some scenes.Honestly, this turned out to be much better than I was expecting, and some scenes (like for example, the beautiful ending scene) remind me the times when innocent films for the whole family were produced, unlike the commercial and inappropriate kid's movies and television shows of the recent years.

michael thompson We are living in an age of unruly behaviour from both children and adults alike, we have created by stealth, an unruly, undisciplined Society.Nanny Mcfee is the Nanny State we all need, because freedom and choice, without responsibility, is how we are now.But we don't want to believe we need a Nanny State, because we have freedom to do what we want, when we want, and so have our offspring.Our consumerism this past 30 odd years has spawned adults who are nothing more than infantile brats who have kept the chain going, and no politician can stop this because it would be seen as dictatorship.So freedom and choice is what we have, so much so that disciplining our young people has been thrown to the wind.But we refuse to acknowledge our little darlings are the products of us all, and so and it goes on and on.And this refusal is our greatest downfall, if only we could see it, and had the guts to do something about it.When you watch Nanny McFee, read between the lines. It is much more than just another Mary Poppins.

fedor8 The strongest aspect of NM is the visual quality, into which valiant effort must have gone. Well done. However, as determined as the filmmakers must have been in trying to make this predictable kiddie-movie formula film look great, they were even more ambitious in one thing: trying to make Angela Lansbury look worse than she already does.And I'm not just taking cheap shots at her three-digit age (she's like Lauren Bacall: immortal). The point is that she'd always looked hideous. (That's nepotism for ya.) Which begs the obvious conclusion: sticking a large nose onto Lansbury is an utterly unnecessary act of sheer overkill. Futile; sort of like the reverse of trying to make a cockroach look sexy by giving it breast implants.I could be similarly nasty about Emma Thompson. When her warts and the tooth are gone, do we really see much of an improvement? Hardly a face to fall in love with - unless your name is Ken and you make dull Shakespeare adaptations (for lazy O-Level students) for a living. She also wrote the screenplay, based on some kids' books, and that must have been one helluva feat, huh? Even Madonna managed to put a few sentences together when she released her bin-worthy drivel. (Although, to be fair, when it comes to the Immaterial (Kabbalah, remember) Girl I'll just have to give her the non-benefit of a doubt and assume that she hired a ghost writer even for that.)Colin Firth... Well, Firth is his usual self. Has he ever played anyone else - besides himself I mean? Still, the English understatement, combined with the stereotypical lack of confidence, suited the movie well.Some adults were unnecessarily harsh with their comments and ratings with this movie. They consider it to be too predictable and childish. Well, duh: it's a movie for kids, not adults. What did they expect, "The Usual Suspects"?