Customer Reviews

Nancy Drew

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I turn 40 on June 23rd, so I am old enough to remember the Nancy Drew books that my sister had. The movie is faithful to her character. Nancy is a precocious, mature young teenager with an aptitude for cracking complex cases. The storyline follows a similar pattern to the books: Nancy gets engrossed in a mysterious case, she makes progress, people threaten her, she gets in trouble, etc.

In this particular movie, Nancy and her dad are on business in Los Angeles. They are staying at the former mansion of the late actress Dehlia Draycott, who died under notably mysterious circumstances. Nancy is fascinated by the case and works to resolve it, getting herself and her friends in hot water in the process.

If you've never read a Nancy Drew novel, then watching this movie will remind you of a Murder She Wrote episode geared toward the kids. That's what this movie is in essence (except of course that Nancy is not a writer per se).

The film makers choose to portray Nancy as a girl who likes old fashioned clothes and old fashioned ways, yet she is also contemporary (she owns an ipod and has an Apple notebook).

Some of her peers chide her for being out of touch with the times (think Brady Bunch Movie), but Nancy is secure with herself.

I took some kids from church to the movie today, and they all enjoyed it. My wife liked it, too.

At last- a teenage girl movie where the NICE girl doesn't change into a tramp to fit in! My nieces; ages 12, 13, & 14 LOVED it and I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it too. The clothes were adorable! The kid did a good job as Nancy Drew. I hope they make more movies in this series.

I'm not the harsh critic that others are here. I saw this movie at the theater with my adult sister, adult daughter, and young neice & nephew. All of us enjoyed the it. Beforehand, I wasn't sure about Emma Roberts as an actor, but she did a good job.

There's just is not enough family-type movies (non-animated), to go see these days. That's why I gave this one a 5-star rating. It was fun to see a haunted house and the variety of locations used. A lot of adventure and ingenuity with Nancy. Interesting characters and good dialogue. I like to see articulate, clever dialogue (does not stoop to swearing & vulgarity to get our attention), as in classic, older movies.

I plan to buy this Nancy Drew 2007 movie on DVD. And will probabaly see the sequel, too.

I thought the producers, et al, did a fairly good job of modernizing Nancy Drew without totally changing the original character of the 1930s-1950s. I know; I've read the original 56 books and am a collector. My complaint is I'd wished for a more serious Nancy Drew movie, not the light comedy similar to the 1930s original movies. However, I can imagine the difficulty of creating a totally serious movie of a book character that wasn't known for realism.

The popularity of Nancy Drew has always been based on to the fact that Nancy Drew was different from other girls her age: she had the freedom that all teens craved, had plenty of money to do whatever she wanted to do, and a doting father that pretty much let her do whatever she wanted to do, because she was always very responsible and level-headed. The books were popular to parents because the character was squeaky-clean and a do-gooder with brains.

For those adults and guys who went to see it and didn't like it, what in the world were you expecting, anyway? :)

As an adult who took my daughter (a Drew fan) and her girlfriend to see it (The girlfriend never read Nancy Drew), I can report that these two from the movie's target age-group loved it.

I felt the beginning of the movie was, as a friend of mine put it--sloppy, but after the first, say, 20 minutes, the movie picked up and turned out okay. Thus, 4 stars.

The best thing about this movie is how it makes a role model out of Nancy Drew, portraying her as smart, refined, polite, having a heart to help people, confident in her convictions and not influenced by peer pressure. This is in comparison to the mean-spirited, superficial, clothes-obsessed Paris Hilton-wannabes in the school she temporarily attends after leaving River Heights for a short stay in L.A. As a whole, the movie is clean, entertaining, even featuring a wholesome relationship between Nancy and beau Ned Nickerson, who is also shown as anything but caught up in the shallowness displayed by Nancy's classmates.

My disappointment: I think the movie would have been perfect if it was a straight Nancy Drew mystery story. The Mean Girls/Brady Bunch Movie fish-out-of-the-water approach just distracts and relegates this movie to just another tween flick, versus something that could have been greater. I read somewhere that something similar was planned for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" movie, with the four Pevensie children transported to L.A. and craving cheeseburgers instead of Turkish Delight. Thank goodness, sanity prevailed, and the producers of the movie decided to be faithful to C.S. Lewis' book. What we have now is a high-grossing Narnia movie that's well-crafted, timeless and appealing to all generations--something that can be watched over and over.

In Warner Brothers' attempts to appeal to a narrow market--tween children who are not avid Nancy Drew readers and who can only be attracted to movies with a modern twist--they miss out on reaching a wider audience: Nancy Drew fans of all ages and generations. Contrary to the movie's premise, Nancy Drew is not a relic of the past--in fact, the strengths of her character and the thrills of her adventures are universal and applicable to all times and locales. While many enjoy the movie now, I believe many, many more would have if the producers only had more faith in Nancy Drew's timeless appeal.

SPOILER TO FOLLOW: One of the unfortunate things about this movie is that the mystery Nancy attempts to unravel involves a subject that's inappropriate for young viewers--unwed mothers. Parents may want to talk to their children about the facts of life after watching this with them.

Nancy Drew is one of those iconic heroes kids who read tend to grow up with. I know I shared several of her adventures (read on the sly because I'm a guy) when I was younger. I read the Hardy Boys out in the public eye, along with the adventures of Tom Swift, Jr., Ken Holt, and Rick Brant.

But Nancy's adventures were always somehow more mysterious and more fun. They concentrated on the twists and the turns of the mystery, and the secrets of the suspects that Nancy had to ferret out. Although created by the Edward Stratemeyer Syndicate (as were the Hardy Boys, the Rover Boys, Tom Swift, Sr. and Jr., and the Dana Girls), most of Nancy's adventures were penned by Mildred Wirt Benson. Benson wrote some of the best Nancy Drew mysteries ever printed (23 of the first 25).

The first books came out in 1930, and movies swiftly followed due to public familiarity and interest in seeing the character on the big screen. Four Nancy Drew movies appeared in the late 1930s. In the 1970s, a television series starring Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew came out. THE HARDY BOYS/NANCY DREW MYSTERIES became a hit and ran from 1977 to 1979. Television tried Nancy Drew as a series again in 1995, and a made-for-tv movie with Nancy in college came out in 2002.

Nancy Drew remains a solid sales force in video games. Based on her book adventures, the video games offer players a chance to point and click clues to solve mysteries. So far, 19 video games have come out from Her Interactive Inc. A new game was also made for the Nintendo DS game system.

Making a new movie about Nancy Drew seems almost a no-brainer. Warner Bros., the original studio that made Nancy Drew movies, returned to bring the new movie to life.

Directed by Andrew Fleming, the film is a delight for family night. Instead of having Nancy in her element in her hometown, she's thrown into wild and wooly Los Angeles where she's a fish out of water. She keeps a lot of the old-fashioned sense and sensibility from the original series, which makes her seem like a goof in modern times, and I have to admit that I wasn't entirely won over by the treatment. In fact, if it hadn't been for the sheer likeability of young Emma Roberts (father Eric Roberts and aunt Julia), I wouldn't have bought into the representation of Nancy.

What I ultimately ended up doing is filing away my preconceived imaginings of Nancy Drew and embracing this version. I no longer thought of her as the Nancy Drew I grew up with, but more like a granddaughter of the original series heroine who hasn't quite come into her own yet.

The Nancy Drew in this film isn't quite finished, but I loved the pluck and drive of Miss Roberts's presentation and thought she was fabulous.

There's actually a lot going on in the film. I think that too much of it actually extends beyond the scope of the mystery and that made the personal plots as well as the crime solving fall apart at times. We see that Nancy is an overachiever and that she doesn't fit in with the L. A. girls, but that subplot kind of staggers along till it solves itself (with the arrival of Ned Nickerson - Max Thieriot). Likewise, the mystery gets torn up by Nancy's efforts to be "normal" and make her dad happy.

I would have preferred the movie focus on the mystery and the subplots to have branched out of that. Still, there were comedic moments provided by those subplots that were enjoyable and made the film move quickly.

Since Nancy got to pick the house that she and her father live at while in L. A., she chose one with a mystery. A Hollywood actress went missing for five months and was later, after her return, found dead in her pool while at her party. The murder was never solved, and that draws Nancy's sleuth senses into overdrive.

I liked the mysterious clues, the secret passageways, and the riddles and clues that eventually lead Nancy to the solution of the murder. The film contains enough narrow escapes, chases, and threatening phone calls to keep every young detective (and mystery-loving parents) interested.

Josh Flitter plays Corky, a pre-adolescent would-be rapper Lothario that absolutely steals the show at times. He was one of the primary ingredients that kept reminding me this was not the Nancy Drew I grew up with, but I couldn't help but laugh out loud at his antics. His sense of timing and delivery is awesome, and I've just found out he's going to be in the starring role of ACE VENTURA, JR.

Bruce Willis has an uncredited cameo in the film that's funny to watch. But, again, it's one of those things that really detracts from the overall mystery. Nancy's adventures in the novels, especially the early ones, focused tightly on the pursuit of the solution.

My ten year old had seen Nancy Drew books in the school library, but we haven't read any of them yet. The movie hooked him and he sat with his mom and me to watch the whole film. He had a blast, so I can recommend this film to parents with kids wholeheartedly because he can be a tough audience.

I had a great time with NANCY DREW, and I think Emma Roberts will win over readers familiar with the teen detective in spite of the differences and escalated humor, and make new fans of kids that haven't ever seen Nancy in action before.

The special features on the disc are skinny, but worth watching. The cast and crew obviously had a good time filming this one.

Nancy drew the movie was so awsome. I got to see it on the day it came out on theatures and boy did I enjoy IT. This movie is awsome and they did a good job keeping the real nancy Drew character. For I have read alot of Nancy drew books and her personality really showed in the movie. They even gave the movie a fair rating. For this movie did earn a PG sign for it is a murder case in a way. I thought this movie was well done and any kid 9 and up would love it. Some adults might say it only worth 2 stars but that's because they are not kids and aren't use to good clean kids movies. So in my eyes this movie is 5 big juicy stars and earned each and everyone of them. So if you haven't seen this wonderful movie yet I think you should try to get hold of one as soon as possiable ,for this movie is so good. So don't wait watch it. Because Nancy Drew is a great movie and is better than most movies I have seen.


Apple

When I heard a new Nancy Drew movie was being released, I was certain it would be a big disappointment....BUT....I was wrong!! The movie is "updated" and yet has the feel of the classic novels that I grew up reading. I love how Nancy Drew really behaves as she would've many years ago (think egg salad sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper and lemon bars in a tin in her purse!) , and yet she is "cool" in the modern world. This movie brought to life a character I grew up with and yet wasn't "old fashioned".

I'm glad to have a movie to entertain my dds AND me at the same time.

Can't wait 'til this it out on DVD!!!

The conceit of this 2007 update/reboot of the Nancy Drew franchise (which over the decades has included books, movies, TV shows, and probably other offerings I'm unaware of) is that everything in Nancy's world has been updated except Nancy herself. Nancy as seen here prefers to dress like a young girl from the 1940's and 50's ("I like old-fashioned things") and has the polite manners of that era, too, which will likely make older viewers sigh with nostalgia.

With her retro ways and her sometimes over-the-top crimefighting skills (Nancy actually carries a grappling hook to descend from roofs), initially one wonders if we should be laughing at Nancy along with her teen peers. But, no, like those other characters, we soon fall into the "we should respect others even if they're a little different" vibe that the movie enthusiastically gives off before too long.

Once we're used to her eccentricities, Nancy comes off as a charming, likable character, and one we care about as she takes on a somewhat dangerous mystery. Things never get too scary, though. In fact, the operative adjective to describe the movie is "nice". It's a cute, fun, nice little movie that will show you a pleasant time for an hour and thirty-five minutes. Whether one should point out that "Nancy Drew" might have done better at the box office if it had slightly bigger ambitions than simply being "nice" (and thus maybe generated a sequel) is another question, of course.

The standard DVD of "Nancy Drew" looks and sounds great, and there are a variety of mostly kid-oriented special features to round out the proceedings.

It's great to watch a movie with such a smart young heroine. I enjoyed watching this positive film with my daughters. Hope for more films like this.