Nancy Drew

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Bright semi-adult entertainment.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Parents who want smart, harmless movies that don't condescend for their school-age kids -- a rare thing these days -- should be grateful for Nancy Drew.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A very clever update of the 16-year-old heroine, managing to make her seem both as square as the Bobbsey Twins and as contemporary as MySpace.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

What's not to like about a girl detective who is a good citizen and better student, a leader rather than a follower, a resourceful seamstress who won't cut her clothes to fit this year's fashions?

TV Guide Ken Fox

The movie's refusal to treat young girls like silly tramps-in-training is almost radical: It's just good, clean fun and actually offers children of a certain age a role model even adults can feel good about.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

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

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The postmodernist evocations of the past (roughly the 50s through the 80s) are a charming mishmash, delivered with wit and style.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Fleming's movie is, at the very least, a tribute to Nancy Drew's longevity -- and a valentine to all of us who, even as we strive to live in the present, just like old things.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

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.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It's one of the few tween movies that isn't in your face; its limpness becomes appealing.

Film Threat Stina Chyn

Overall, I found myself not hating the film. There's just one thing that troubles me about the way Nancy Drew is depicted. She is determined, a perfectionist, uber-organized, and efficient. Those qualities can be associated to geekdom, but they’re also symptoms of someone with a propensity for disordered eating or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Hmmm.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

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.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Nice. The film itself is more nice than good, but nice isn't the worst trait.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A well-written and in many ways pleasing update of a character who has endured in print for 78 years. Too bad it's sadly slow-paced.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

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.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

The teen parties and sidekick silliness are time filler, and not very good filler either -- why even Bruce Willis shows up in a scene that has nothing to do with the story.

USA Today Scott Bowles

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.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

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

Village Voice J. Hoberman

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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

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

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Emma Roberts is squeaky-clean to a fault and so is the movie.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

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.

Empire Kim Newman

That this is just about passable as a divorced parent’s weekend treat is down to Roberts’ charm and the timeless appeal of Nancy herself.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

No rose-colored memories can improve this tedious interpretation of the famous girl detective's adventures. Nancy Drew falls somewhere between "The Haunted Mansion" and the live-action "Scooby Doo" movies in terms of quality but is more irritating than either.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

It's marginally possible that Nancy Drew is spoofing high school adventure movies, and I almost hope so. Otherwise, it's unwatchable on every level.

Premiere Chris Willard

At the end of the movie, the only mystery left unsolved is where your time and money have gone.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Call it Nancy Drew and the Case of the Confused Adaptation.

Variety Lael Loewenstein

Purportedly an attempt to modernize the young detective's adventures for a new generation of tweens, the pic instead serves up stale mystery-movie cliches and overcooked red herrings in a thoroughly wooden adaptation.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

It's not really a matter of Nancy's retro look and grounding in the fundamentals of sleuthing that separates the women from the girls but, rather, this film's lack of gaiety and surprise that makes it dud for old and new generations of the books' fans.