Nancy: It really gets my goat when someone tries to kill me. It’s so rude!

Okay, so it’s a reinvented famous character fixated on her time period placed into modern times, who is unaware of how outdated she is, and is proud that she is the product of writers who can’t decide if this Nancy Drew is a moral of self-appreciation or just an outright misplaced anachronism? Yes, I’m quite confused too. And yet I still managed to look forward to and personally enjoy “Nancy Drew” a great deal. I’m never one to puff up child stars, but Emma Roberts has an indefinable and charisma that makes her a perfect lead as Nancy Drew. She’s cute, she’s sweet, and surely enough she’s a natural fit. As for Nancy Drew, she’s a timeless feminist icon who is really a character worth admiring in this day and age. She’s independent, smart, and has a sense of self-confidence that reasonably makes her lovable, but she also appreciates the men in her life, which is natural since the men in her life complete the character’s presence. An apparent attempt at a reboot, this new film features Nancy moving to California for a few months and is on the verge of solving a big mystery in spite of her dad’s attempts to sway her into acting like a real teenager and not a sleuth.

“Nancy Drew” is a sugary, and tart little family crime caper, and after watching previous installments, director Andrew Fleming never loses any of the spunk and madcap adventure Drew is famous for. Just the same, the folks behind this make the inadvertent juxtaposition of modern teen youth and Nancy as she’s irrepressibly cute, always striving to achieve, and yet is hard to dislike, while she’s among a tapestry of vapid, annoying, and superficial young people who look pale in comparison. Drew, regardless of how awfully demeaned she is in school, simply can’t help who she is, and will surely provide an interesting template for parents looking to break their daughters out of the whorish Bratz! mentality. “Nancy Drew” succeeds in winning over even the most cynical viewer arousing me of all people to follow the mystery she can’t help but want to solve when she moves into a new house that happens to be a famous tourist attraction where a famous actress (Laura Elena Harring as beautiful as ever) died. “Nancy Drew” is understandably predictable, as the clues come hard and fast and never really keep us stumped, but this is more intended for young audiences who likely will want to interact. It’s wholesome, it’s sweet, and heaven help me, I just enjoyed it. It’s a girl power film you can feel good about watching for once.

In spite of the writers’ best efforts to provide Drew with a likable link to the modern world she’s not too comfortable in, Josh Flitter fails at being cute, sarcastic, and likable. As her portly admirer and sidekick he’s truly irritating with often obnoxious scenes that will make it difficult to sympathize for him, as well as find a logical reason for him being included in the story. He seems to be there just to provide the tween presence, and really his character should have been better written, or at least recast. He's not particularly a child actor I want to see more of, and in the case of future sequels, none of.

I couldn’t resist the sweet and often entertaining misadventures of a truly engaging feminist icon brought onto the screen by Emma Roberts with humility, individuality, and comic timing. And the celebrity cameos are fun, too. Now when can we see a reboot of “The Hardy Boys”?

• In the first few novels of "Nancy Drew," the character carried a gun in her sleuth kit for protection.

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