Disney’s ‘Nancy Drew’ uses cell phone, ‘Vette

It’s been many a decade since well-to-do Nancy Drew tooled around in her blue roadster, going a-sleuthing in frock and pearls. The post-flapper era heroine’s make-overs have been numerous and varied.

So younger viewers probably won’t bat an eye at a 21st century version of the long-lived heroine, but nostalgic fans may get a jolt when they tune in Sunday to “Nancy Drew,” a sleekly produced new TV movie on “The Wonderful World of Disney” (7 p.m., ABC).

This Nancy (Maggie Lawson), a college freshman, is a tire-squealing speedster in a baby-blue Corvette; uses a cell phone while driving with one or no hands on the wheel (“Hey, babe, it’s my other line”); wears tight black leather pants as breaking-and-entering chic; and urges chums Bess (Jill Ritchie) and George (Lauren Birkell) to “go kick some sorority butt.”

Her know-it-all confidence in her crime-solving, journalistic and even latte-making abilities seems downright pathological for a time. Fortunately, writer Ami Canaan Mann and director James Frawley don’t leave it at that sorry note.

Nothing in the script mitigates the appalling message sent by Nancy’s risky driving habits, but she’s eventually taken down a peg or two by her exasperated best friends and the crusty journalism professor (James Avery) she’s trying to impress with her reporting skills.

She also turns out to be a sensitive, passionate crusader for what’s right, and suffers a bruised ego and a painful estrangement from her lawyer dad (Brett Cullen) for her cause: proving that officials at River Heights University are encouraging school athletes to use a performance-enhancing drug that has left one student in a coma.

The emotional layers, such as they are, would be far less discernible, however, if not for Lawson, a glowing blond beauty who brings grace and intelligence to the role and even -- unexpectedly and against the odds -- a sense of connection to yesteryear’s girl sleuth extraordinaire.