Nancy Drew (2002)

Sadly Over-hyped

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

As feminist role model for young women, Nancy Drew can't be beat. She's eternally popular whether it's Bonita Granville in the Thirties, Pamela Sue Martin in the Seventies and now Maggie Lawson for the new millenia. Maggie is a worthy addition to her predecessors.Nancy competes with men at their own game and shows them up quite frequently. She's intelligent, pretty, resourceful, who wouldn't want a girl like her or be threatened by her if the male ego wasn't too secure. Brett Cullen is her infinitely patient father Carson Drew who while he keeps cautioning her, really admires how his daughter has turned out.Nancy's a little older now, she's in college as a journalism major, this generation's Nancy has grown up with tales of the exploits of Woodward and Bernstein and for one who's got a terminal case of snoopiness, this is the field for her.When a star halfback on the school's football team has a stroke at the ripe old age of 20, her curiosity is more than piqued. She's got quite a scoop when it turns out he's been taking performance enhancing steroids. But is it illegal and if so, where does the blame lie?Sabine Singh turns in a nice performance as the halfback's girl friend and Nick Stabile is around as Nancy's ever dependable friend Ned Nickerson. In keeping with the updating of these stories, Ned's a computer geek now and his expertise in hacking, helps Nancy get her story and nearly lands her in jail.This version of Nancy Drew is nothing great, but it's every bit as good as the B picture product Warner Brothers did back in the day. And Nancy is still the best investigator around.

I am a die-hard Nancy Drew fan. I haven't yet spoken with someone who has sat through this entire movie and said "I really liked it. I really, really liked it." Maggie Lawson is a good actress, I'll give her that - in fact, a lot of the people on the movie are decent - if not great - actors. But no amount of talent could fix the scripting issues here.Seriously, I have never watched a movie like this - it's completely unique! It's hides its plot so well taht it took me 5 times watching it (a JOYFUL amount of time which I shall never get back) to actually understand what happened, who do it, and what they did. I'm not joking. It takes a really long time to comprehend what's going on.And now for the characters - look, I don't mind it if you want to make Nancy Drew you're own, but this was ridiculous. Nancy's father seemed to be the biggest problem for me. His character was no where near the supportive, caring single-father of the books. He was really mean, and insensitive to Nancy.Now, if you're a "die-hard" fan like me, you'll also notice how inaccurate the film is. (Non-diehards might want to ignore this paragraph.) Mostly it's little things. The name of the University is wrong. Nancy's dog was not named Butch, and was not a large breed. Things like that which Disney really could've stood to fix. But there's also problems with things like characters.Although, in the movie's favor, they did pick a really good-looking Ned (even if he has a total of 10 seconds screen time - accurate, if you've read the "On Campus" series).However, if you really love Nancy Drew, there's no stopping you from watching this I've learned. I say, go ahead, it's worth seeing once (heck, it's not like any of the other Nancy Drew films have been any better), if only to laugh at.

I was left utterly appalled to see what the scriptwriters and actors of this Disney film adaptation had done to Nancy Drew, the heroine in some of my favourite books through the latter years of primary school. Quite frankly, anyone who has read the books will find her character mutilated in this film.This film sees eighteen-year-old Nancy Drew starting university with her best friends Bess and George when she is drawn into the mystery of how Jesse, an up-and-coming American football player, is left comatose. Her instincts telling her there is much more to the story than meets the eye, Nancy's investigations should lead her into trouble with the police and the university officials.What was the premise for a film that could entice new readers to the books ended up just a mess and I could see intelligent young girls never wanting to see any more of Nancy Drew again after this. The tenacious, bright but modest Nancy from the novels had mutated into a egotistical, obnoxious, conceited snob who desperately needed to be taken down a peg or two before her head swelled too much. Clearly, the character had been dumbed down by a scriptwriter who assumed these were qualities young girls wanted to idolise. I lost count of the number of times people commented that Nancy had 'spunk' when all she really had was arrogance. And what was with the multi-million dollar bank account she clearly had access to (her car was not exactly what you'd see the average teen driving around) when what made Nancy so interesting was the fact she was a normal 'every' girl. Meanwhile, we had two air-headed bimbos in the form of Bess and George. Heath Freeman was completely miscast in the role of Patrick Daly, the detective heading the enquiry into Jesse's incident. He looked all of twenty-five yet we are meant to believe he ranks so high in the police force (if so, they must have ten-year-olds recruited as uniformed officers).This film wasn't 'Nancy Drew of the twenty-first century', it was 'Nancy Drew, dumbed down' and it failed miserably as an adaptation. Hollywood scriptwriters need to go back to studying how to adapt young female characters and learn that there is no need to sex them up purely to appeal to kids as the original, more understated qualities of the characters in the novels were what made them so appealing in the first place. Those who want a more intelligent investigative film aimed at younger viewers should check out 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' or 'From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' instead.

As a fan of the Nancy Drew books, I was eager to watch this movie. However, while watching it I found that it was disloyal to the series. Nancy Drew in the books is smart, courageous and a role model. The Nancy Drew of this movie is arrogant and self-centred. Bess was portrayed as a Barbie dumb-blonde stereotype, but George's character seemed almost true to the books although she had hardly any lines. The new, heavily accented character 'Teeny' was introduced in this movie as an annoying character who I assume was meant to bring light relief, but instead brought annoying stereotypical Spanish phrases and her character lacked depth. Nancy Drew's smart-Aleck comments made her come across as conceited, she may have needed some to show her confidence, but showing off - especially in front of Detective Daly - was unnecessary. There were plot holes in this movie also, such as when Nancy is at Detective Daly's office and can tell where his father is just by looking at the photos on his desk, yet she can only tell he is left handed when he begins to write, although he has been wearing a gun holster across his shoulders the whole time which clearly shows he is a lefty. This Nancy Drew movie, although fresh and probably popular with other teenage movie watchers, was nothing compared to the great stories of the books, which were complex and did not dumb themselves down to what movie makers think the kids of today want. We deserve better than that.