The appeal of the faithfully tame new “Nancy Drew” feature film might be something of a mystery to many adults, even to now-grown-up fans of the original mid-century crime thriller book series. But it’s likely that tweens and their younger siblings in particular will be more clued in to the simple charms of today’s reworking of kid lit’s favorite girl detective.
As directed and co-written by Andrew Fleming, produced with cute costumes and modest adventure on par with family-friendly cable channel fare, it’s low on star power and story pizzazz while retaining the innocent tone and child-empowerment subtext of the source material. There are definitely more harmful corners of the multiplex in which to dump the offspring as the dog days heat up this summer.
