Synopsis
Intrepid teenage private eye Nancy Drew heads to Tinseltown with her father to investigate the unsolved murder of a movie star in this old-fashioned whodunit based on Carolyn Keene's popular series of books for young adults. But can the small-town girl cut through the Hollywood hype to solve the case?
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Cast
- Emma RobertsNancy Drew
- Max ThieriotNed Nickerson
- Josh FlitterCorky Veinshtein
- Rachael Leigh CookJane Brighton
- Kay PanabakerGeorgie
- Tate DonovanCarson Drew
- Marshall BellJohn Leshing
- Daniella MonetInga Veinshtein
- Kelly VitzTrish
- Bruce WillisBruce (uncredited)
Recommendations
- 70
Washington Post
Manages to navigate the era of cellphones and Mean Girls with retro nostalgia and wholesomeness, making it a rare girl-powered outing for tweens in an otherwise guy-centric summer. - 63
Chicago Tribune
Nice. The film itself is more nice than good, but nice isn't the worst trait. - 58
Entertainment Weekly
The culprit, I'd say, is the uninteresting casting of Miss Roberts in the title role. She's a pleasant enough performer, but her made-for-teen-TV acting style, a perky blandness, doesn't supply a clue as to the appeal of Nancy Drew after all these years. - 50
The Hollywood Reporter
The culture-clash procedural, which brings the small-town teen to big bad Hollywood, feels more perfunctory than inspired. - 50
Village Voice
This tweener goddess--a virtual Batcave of handy accessories packed in her shoulder bag--may prove too annoying for general audiences, particularly as Roberts plays her comically straight. - 50
ReelViews
An effective translation of the source material, but that's not necessarily a good thing. - 42
Christian Science Monitor
Emma Roberts is squeaky-clean to a fault and so is the movie. - 40
The New York Times
As it is, Nancy Drew stands as an example of how to take a foolproof, time-tested formula -- a young detective using smarts and determination to solve a case -- and mess it up with superficial cleverness and pandering hackwork. How this happened is hardly a mystery; botched adaptations are as common as BlackBerries in Hollywood. But it is nonetheless something of a crime.
