During Barely Lethal, our kooky-but-klutzy-but-super-trained spytagonist settles down to scout an environment that’d test any agent: high school, via Mean Girls. Anyone who fancies a teen movie with bite would be advised to do likewise.

Attempts to subvert some of the standard tropes never really come off and it’s light on laughs, but some younger teens might go in for its sanitised take on revision and rendition, while Rob Huebel does his bit to enter great “movie dad” territory.

Really though, diet Kingsman is toothless and lazy. Were this reviewer of similar ilk, it’d deserve the awful summation: “Lethal? Barely.”

Lethal? Barely.

RATING: 2/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Hailee Steinfeld, Samuel L. Jackson, Sophie Turner, Dove Cameron

DIRECTOR: Kyle Newman

WRITER: John D’Arco

SYNOPSIS: A teenager raised to be a special ops agent fakes her death and enrolls in high school.