Believe it or not Nancy Drew is now 89 years old. She sure
doesn’t look it though. Various incarnations of the famed teenage detective
have been around since 1930 when the book series was created by publisher
Edward Stratemeyer as a counterpart to his famed Hardy Boys mysteries. The
character made her way to the screen in the early 1930s, became a TV series in
1977 and was in the movies again back in 2007. Now she returns once more to the
screen.
NANCY DREW AND THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE features Sophia Lillis
(who was last seen in IT) as the titular characters. After her mother’s death
Nancy and her father Carson (Sam Trammell) move to the small town of River
Heights where her aunt lives. As is normal with kids in movies, Nancy becomes friends
with two of the less popular girls her age, George (Zoe Renee) and Bess
(Mackenzie Graham).
When Bess is humiliated online by school jock Derek (Evan
Castelloe), Nancy decides to get revenge. With the help of her friends she
sneaks into the gym he frequents, plants cameras around the location and then
installs a special shower head while blocking off all others. The end result is
his wandering eye ways with every girl at the gym on camera and a shower that
dyes him completely blue.
Punished for her misdeeds Nancy is sentenced to community
service but while at the police station she overhears Derek’s girlfriend and
popular girl Helen (Laura Wiggins) and her aunt Flora (Linda Lavin) complaining
to the chief that Flora’s house is haunted. Intrigued Nancy offers to help and
Flora takes a liking to her, inviting her to stop by.
Staying over for the night with Helen there as well they
trio see the various apparitions that Flora described from floating candles to
a dark figure in the house to kitchen drawers sliding in and out on their own.
Is the house really haunted?
The next day Nancy and Helen explore the house and find a
hidden passage that leads to a staircase and explanation as to what was taking
place the night before. But who was behind it all? And what reason would they
have for trying to frighten Aunt Flora?
Taking some evidence she comes across Nancy, Bess and George
sneak into the school lab and spend the night trying to figure out what the
items she found were made of. When the three are discovered Nancy is grounded
by her aunt. She tries to contact her father but he’s seemed to have
disappeared as well. Once again the question is raised, what exactly is going
on here?
The movie does a great job of being able to entertain adults
as well as teens who the movie was definitely made for. It presents a decent
mystery to be solved with clues provided so that viewers can take their time
deciphering each and trying to figure out on their own who is behind it all.
Long before Scooby Doo and his crew were solving mysteries like this Drew and
the Hardy Boys were doing the same thing. It’s nice to see her back on screen
and my guess is teens, especially girls, will have a blast watching this one.
The acting here is better than most I’ve seen when it comes to
teen flicks. Lillis, who displayed her abilities in the film IT, turns in
another solid performance and is a young star worth keeping your eye on. Renee
and Graham are a perfect fit for the friends that Nancy makes, supportive in
both character and performance. Wiggins does well her too as the popular girl
who learns there’s more to life than being prom queen. And it’s nice to see
Lavin again, long gone from her days as TV’s Alice.
The movie entertains and provides an easy distraction with
little to fear for parents looking for a movie to share with their kids.
Perhaps it might not be a good idea to let the youngest see some of the pranks
that get done here but they’re not really that bad. A potential romance for
Nancy (who’s 16 in this film) is set in motion and the possibility of a series
of films is there when it ends. I hope it happens. It would be nice to see
Nancy Drew around for a while with decent family fare on hand. Let’s hope they
choose to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment