Barely Lethal
A 16-year-old international assassin yearning for a "normal" adolescence fakes her own death and enrolls as a senior in a suburban high school. She quickly learns that being popular can be more painful than getting water-boarded.
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- Cast:
- Hailee Steinfeld , Sophie Turner , Jessica Alba , Samuel L. Jackson , Dove Cameron , Thomas Mann , Gabriel Basso
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Reviews
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
First off, don't think that the header for this review is a slam. In fact this movie goes out of the way to embrace tropes. It tells you straight up it's gonna go for the bad-ass action and angst filled tropes with GUSTO!It takes all the awkwardness of high school, and all the insanity of action, mixes them and turns them on their head. First off the "ugly duckling" gets twisted a LOT. "Megan" is an orphan raised in Samuel L. Jackson's school where A is for Ammo, B is for Bazooka, and C is for Chainsaw. Our heroine can't help but exam Teen Life through that training, and the lenses of teen movies/books. And makes mistakes because she just doesn't get normal life. Overall, at least for me, a fresh take on yet another teen movie. Oh, and if Sansa had been based on Sophie Turner in this movie, Ramsey would have been fed to the dogs straight up.
I didnt really care for this movie I only watched it because Dove Cameron and Sophie Turner is in it but I stopped watching because the movie didn't keep me interested
Desperate to experience the 'normal' adolescence of teen movies such as 'Bring It On' and 'Clueless', a teenage assassin flees the institution that trained her and enrolls in a local high school in this action comedy starring Hailee Steinfeld of 'True Grit' fame. The premise is ripe with potential and the film gets one of its best lines early on as Steinfeld tells a group of genuinely friendly cheerleaders "I've seen 'Mean Girls'... twice!", however, not enough is made from the notion of Steinfeld navigating her way through the high school experience based on movie clichés. Most perplexingly, she fails to pick up on the 'love is closer than you think' cliché with Thomas Mann doing the best he can in a thankless turn as the kind-hearted tech geek who has to wait the whole movie before Steinfeld realises that she wants him. The film also never quite maximises the potential of all her assassin training with the bits where she inadvertently hurts others few and far between. The fake slang that the teenagers use in the film is incredibly irksome too. There is a great running gag though with young Jason Drucker constantly finding weapons and gadgetry that Steinfeld has stashed. There is also a very funny bit in which Steinfeld and a friend discuss killing just like two normal teens discussing sex; "the first time should be special"! As for Steinfeld herself, she is engaging throughout. The best performance though comes from Rob Huebel channeling Eugene Levy in 'American Pie' as Mann's wannabe hip father who keeps trying to discuss girls with him in detail.
This is an easy little movie for those who want something silly, but not the usual way. It is true, what most people said about the movie being full of clichés, but I don't think that is a mistake here. Those clichés are a source of humour here, they jump at you and you ARE meant to notice them and not to take them seriously. Even the characters themselves go against some of them (cheerleaders, or the bathroom "actor" scene, anyone?) which makes the whole movie quite enjoyable. And the relationship between Hardman and the little girls? It's so cute and funny, it made me smile every time.Of course, no movie is perfect. This has some problems as well. The story is a bit under-developed, all that stuff that they put in it would have needed a lot more time to form properly. Sometimes the way that the characters act/react just makes you want to roll your eyes. But it's not THAT bad, or at least no worse than any other movie.All in all, I think this is a perfect movie for those nights when you just want to switch off and laugh for a while. I'd definitely recommend it.