Nancy Drew (2007) Critic Reviews

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.Read the full review

Hopefully, the girls who see Nancy Drew this summer will take their cues from the smart, engaged, intellectually curious character Roberts so charmingly portrays.Read the full review

Once the rote mystery elements take over, the film devolves into a second-rate whodunit for kids, but even then, Roberts' irrepressible cheeriness and curiosity in the face of danger proves too adorable to resist.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

The movie's fodder for tweener girls with indiscriminate Nick TV addictions, but there's just enough wit on display to make you realize it could have been worse.Read the full review

The mystery of Nancy Drew' is how a movie can get so many things right -- particularly the inspired casting of Emma Roberts as the spunky teenage sleuth -- yet ultimately disappoint.Read the full review

Nancy Drew is 16, dresses like she's 12 and acts like she's about 45. And therein lies the problem with this adaptation of the beloved book series. The movie can't quite decide how old it wants to be -- or who it's for.Read the full review

The culture-clash procedural, which brings the small-town teen to big bad Hollywood, feels more perfunctory than inspired.Read the full review

An effective translation of the source material, but that's not necessarily a good thing.Read the full review