Nancy Drew

What’s the Story?

Nancy and her dad, Carson (Tate Donovan), leave their Midwestern hometown of River Heights for Los Angeles, where they stay in a mysterious mansion in which a beautiful Hollywood star named Dehlia Draycott (Laura Elena Harring) wound up dead. Nancy has promised her dad that, instead of sleuthing, she'll try to be "normal" -- if that's possible in 2007 for an 18-year-old who wears penny loafers and twin-sets to a Hollywood high school. But eventually she can't help herself, and she starts digging away at the circumstances surrounding Dehlia's death. With the aid of an obnoxious, adoring 12-year-old freshman named Corky (Josh Flitter), her low-tech detective kit, her signature blue roadster, and her cute-but-completely-uncharismatic (boy)friend Ned (Max Thieriot), Nancy has everything a girl needs to solve a 25-year-old mystery.

Is It Any Good?

Updated by director Andrew Fleming in the form of perky Emma Roberts, Nancy Drew is equal parts goody-two-shoes and intuitive investigator. As the throwback "sleuth" (an anachronistic word in and of itself), Roberts is an excellent role model for obedience and good citizenship, but there's a certain oomph missing in this modernized take on the teen detective.

But the bigger puzzle is how Roberts -- who stars in her own Nickelodeon show, Unfabulous, and is Julia's niece -- doesn't make Nancy as vibrant and endearing as she was on the page. Sure, she's sweet, and she proves that girls don't need guys to save them from peril, but her adolescent Sherlock Holmes isn't engaging enough to merit another movie mystery.