Nanny McPhee Returns

 A sequel to the amusing Nanny McPhee movie, we watched this 2010 family film back in Amsterdam.

While these aren't headliner films, they are amusing and easy on the eye for a lazy evening behind the tube.

Isabel is driven to the edge of her patience as she has to manage the farm and her kids at the same time while her husband is off fighting in World War 1.  They are joined by the two snobbish children from her sister as they are evacuated to the countryside, a rivalry between the children immediatly sparks.

Nanny McPhee arrives to help them out, and while the children first refuse to listen, she quickly starts teaching them important lessons with the help of her magical powers.  In the meantime her brother-in-law Phil tries to sabotage the farm, in order for her to sell it so he can pay off his gambling debts.  One of his schemes to do so is even create a false telegram telling her husband died in the war, but one of the children refuses to believe this as "he can feel it in his bones".  

They convince Nanny McPhee to go to London to the War Office, where the cousin's father holds a high position.  At first he refuses to help them, but after getting a lecture on how he is neglecting his parental duties, he decides to help out, they deduce the telegram forged.

As the children return just in time to prevent Isabel signing the papers, just as a german bomb falls in their fields.  They manage to defuse the bomb, but as they celebrate it is revealed that Isabel's strange boss Mrs Doherty is actually baby Agetha from the first film, who still remembers Nanny McPhee.  As the nanny takes her leave with her mission completed, Rory returns home, reuniting the family.

An innocent, enjoyable adventure and surely worth that time to watch if you just want to clay on the couch.  With movies like this you can't go to wrong after all.