Better Late Then Never

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Nancy Drew (Maggie Lawson) starts college with best friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne. She has garnered some fame from her sleuthing in River Heights High. Duke Shifflin is her journalism professor. Hank Luckman is bumbling student. Bess wants to pledge a sorority and Nancy goes in support. Christina 'Teeny' Timkins is the bossy girl who has to pledge her mother's sorority. Allison Price is Tri-Pi president. Her boyfriend star linebacker Jesse goes into a coma rumored to be drugs and Nancy Drew senses a mystery.I am not a big fan of Nancy Drew. I have never read any of the books. I don't know any Nancy Drew story. The TV Nancy Drew with edge for me is Veronica Mars. Nancy is new to college and it would be better for her to start out alone. While Bess and George are a part of her series, nothing is more TV than having a bunch of kids go from high school to college together. That's not a good thing. I rather have the teen Nancy Drew in high school. This is starting a teen soap in year five and that's usually a rough spot on the decline for almost every one of these shows. This is never going to work as a pilot.

I love Maggie Lawson on "Psych," and I love Nancy Drew, so I was interested to see this 2002 "Nancy Drew." My experiences with Nancy in the past include the books, of course, Bonita Granville in the films, and the Pamela Sue Martin TV series, which I don't remember at all.In this incarnation, Nancy is in college with Bess and George. As a journalism major working on the school paper, she becomes interested in a football player who becomes comatose from taking ephedrine, and it's suspected that his girlfriend, a medical student, gave him the drug. Nancy sets out to find the truth.Lawson is pretty, flirtatious, confident, and spunky. Is she Nancy from the books? No, and I wonder if today it's possible to even capture her. The times are different, for one thing. Unlike some other book characters, Nancy Drew was never considered a good character for the movies, which is why the character created by Bonita Granville was so different. The book Nancy was pretty, serious-minded, intelligent, courageous, wore "frocks" and went to "luncheon" with Bess and George. Granville was hyperkinetic and constantly dragging Ted (not Ned, the studio changed his name) into dangerous situations. She was always in trouble. There was no Bess and George.Reading over the reviews on this site, it's interesting that some people have no familiarity with the films or the TV show. There was a complaint that Nancy is not a strawberry blonde here. At least she's blonde - she's been brunette in other incarnations. Someone else wrote that she must have had a million dollar bank account for a car like that. Nancy was always well-to-do - she never worked and she always had her own car. Someone else mentioned Nancy driving like a maniac. That undoubtedly comes from the Bonita Granville movies, which depicted Nancy as a reckless driver.The Nancy character from this "Nancy Drew" is updated more from the films than the books, but it keeps all of the book characters, and they all use their book names.Bottom line - if Nancy wasn't well-adapted from the 1930s books to 1930s films, there's no chance she's going to be well-adapted from the 1930s books to 21st century films or TV movies. As a regular story that has little relation to Nancy Drew, it's pleasant enough. Scarlett O'Hara, Mrs. Dewinter in Rebecca, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, etc. - none of these ever had to be updated; they were done in the period in which they were written. When a 2002 script doesn't even adapt an actual Nancy Drew story from one of the books, the task of creating a modern Nancy becomes impossible.

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.