Nanny McPhee is enjoyable, and by all means should be seen by any film lover. But it should have better - it has a good concept, it has great acting, it has a fun story, so it should have been *terrific.* But it isn't terrific - it's just good. A bit more attention to cleaning up plot details would have put it over the top. There are real plot problems.<br /><br />Negatives: 1) Some plot twists are completely projected. You see them coming a mile away.<br /><br />2) The climax is really unconvincing and seems to have been thrown together. You could even call it hackneyed. I don't know, maybe they were running out of money or time. And that's bad for a movie's climax. But by the time it comes, you already like the characters and the movie, so you are willing to let them get away with it. But it should have been better. I'm trying to not write spoilers, but I mean really - a food fight? And the "trick" that the kids play to win at the end is really just foolish, and wouldn't actually fool anyone.<br /><br />Positives: 1) The acting. I love Emma Thompson, and I'm glad to see her writing a screenplay. *All* of the acting is good. Thompson, Jacobi, Lansbury are, of course, but so are the actors I never heard of.<br /><br />2) The movie portrays a pleasant sort of fantasy Victorian world that is always fun to visit.<br /><br />The characters. The Title Character is one that can easily become a classic, and I think Emma Thompson might have written it just so she could play her. The kids are great, and the movie successfully makes you sympathize with them, even after portraying them as little monsters. The same for the Dad.<br /><br />The movie is almost *corny*, but you can't help liking it, simply because you like the *people* and because you *want* it to be real.<br /><br />I can't give it a high rating because of the flaws, but it's certainly worth seeing.