Barely Lethal [Blu-ray + Digital HD]

While bored and searching for a movie to watch I stumbled upon Barely Lethal. It attracted me with its cast, which includes Oscar-winner Hailee Steinfeld, Sophie Turner, and Samuel L. Jackson. I was hoping for a hidden gem, which I didn't find, but it did relieve my boredom for an hour and a half.Steinfeld plays 83, an orphan raised to be an assassin. However, she'd much rather be an ordinary girl. When she gets a chance, she fakes her death and then attends high school as an exchange student from Canada.There are good moments in Barely Lethal. There's a running joke about Ke$ha perfume that just gets funnier and more absurd as it goes on. I don't know if it was paid product placement, but it worked. Steve-O makes a hilarious cameo as a torturer who really gets 83, now going by the name Megan Walsh. And Megan's host family has great chemistry with her. I was only familiar with Dove Cameron, who plays the daughter, from an ice-cream video song one of my younger cousins made me watch. But she does a good job building up a sisterly rapport.Unfortunately, there's lots of clunky moments. 83 gets most of her knowledge from nineties teen films, plus Mean Girls. She seems not to notice that Mean Girls updated a lot of the tropes she follows. She also is shown reading up to date magazines, but seems to take fashion inspiration from the parts of the eighties that aren't currently in style. Also, everyone makes fun of her makeup from her terrible first day of school appearance when the problem is her hair and outfit. It seems like a top spy would be better at researching and blending in. I was up for some lampooning of teen movie tropes, but Barely Lethal was just so awkward about it.I like Sophie Turner on Game of Thrones, but she seemed rather stiff as 84, who has a one-sided rivalry with 83. Her character is supposed to be icy, but just felt a little off. Maybe it was the American accent they made her do. Jessica Alba's villain is thinly written, but I did appreciate that a former teen actress was cast for the role. It was a nice meta joke. (I liked the casting over all, which mostly has actual teens playing teens. Some of the guys were older.)Barely Lethal is a cute enough movie to watch in the background or if there's nothing else on. It's mostly family friendly, although there are a few jokes that earn the PG-13 rating. It's just bland, which is a waste of a talented cast.

If you're looking for something light to watch on a Friday night, "Barely Lethal" might just fit the bill.It did for me despite the fact the premise is not even remotely realistic, the plot is predictable and it's geared to a young teen audience. That said, the cast, led by Hailee Steinfeld and featuring both Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Alba, does the most with what it has to work with and the result is a charming little coming-of-age movie with appealing characters.The movie centers around a young orphaned girl (Steinfeld) who, trained from an early age to be a covert operative, simply wants to live as a normal teenager who goes to high school, has a boyfriend and a family. When a mission to capture a notorious arms dealer (Alba) doesn't go quite as planned she seizes the opportunity to escape into what she thinks is a normal life by playing dead. She winds up in a small town posing as an exchange student from Canada and discovers that high school, with its cliques and casual emotional cruelty, is far different from what she imagined and might just be worse than being a spy/assassin. She unwittingly exposes her host family to danger when the arms dealer she helped to capture on her last mission escapes from custody and begins looking for her to exact revenge.Steinfeld, who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Mattie Ross in the remake of "True Grit," handles the lead role with a nice blend of angst and innocence. Alba and Jackson have relatively little screen time in the film but make the most of their limited roles.If you're looking for something "deep" this is not the film for you but if you just want to be entertained for a bit then grab some chips and dip and head for the couch, sit back and enjoy this cute movie.

It looks like a good moive and I read about it so I though why not and I watch all and it turns out to be a good moive then and I enjoy it and I don't regret getting it eler no way

An interesting idea for a movie. Could have been better written. Could have been more than a flick for HS kids. But worth watching once, more or less.

The reason I gave this movie 4 stars was because I quite enjoyed myself. Yes, it was cheesy, not to mention dumb, predictable, and the storyline was preposterous, but even despite all that I couldn’t stop myself from cracking up at Meagan’s (Hailee Steinfeld) antics of trying to leave a life of a spy to become a normal teenage girl.The cast was good. I had no complains about it, my only concern was that you can tell Sophie Turner was having a tough time keeping her American accent. When she spoke it sounded forced. I get she’s not use to speaking in an American accent, nevertheless I would have preferred if she kept her English accent in the movie, I would have taken her character more seriously.There was one cast member who surprisingly won me over and I hope to see her more in the future. I didn’t expect much of Dove Cameron. To tell you the truth when I found out she was in the movie I expected the worst. Why? Well, I don’t know why, I just know that the first thing that popped into my mind was “not another Disney star!” But like I said she surprised me.So yeah, you might hate it or you might love it, but in my opinion it was a good distraction.

Plot...Megan is a young teenage girl who has been trained as an assassin by a secret special ops agency her whole life, one day a mission goes slightly wrong leaving her with an opportunity to get out, she now thinks she can start a normal life and go to high school but she was wrong, her past comes back to get her and the new friends and family she has become so attached to.This is a very cool and original take on the whole secret agent type of assassin movies out there, Megan Walsh (Hailee Steinfeld) is a teenage girl who is a bit of a Hit-girl when it comes to kicking ass, she finds a new family and friends forgetting the number 1 rule she was taught, No Attachment's! The movie is well paced with a great story that is full of great characters and genuinely funny humour, it takes your classic high school movies like Mean girls and bring it on etc and mixes it with spy movie ideas and comes up with a likeable cocktail of both genres, the cast is very good, Samuel L Jackson plays the head of the organisation that trained Megan, he gets a decent amount of screen time and plays your usual badass leader, Jessica Alba plays Knox the main villain, she's a sexy assassin that gets little but good looking screen time, Hailee Steinfeld is a brilliant young actress and makes a cool lead, Dove Cameron, Sophie Turner are amazing young actresses too, the movie like I said has a great level of comedy blended in that's really funny when you least expect it, the movie is feel good all round and so much fun, maybe a tad predictable but with a great story and lovable characters is a true gem and worth checking out!!Watch out for the small scene mid end credits.Blu-ray looks good in HD.No features which is a shame really,Region B only, 98-mins running time, 2015.Comes with a cool slipcase while stocks last.

Orphan 'Megan Walsh' (Hailee Steinfeld) has with other Orphans only known of a strict-regime of training as a Special-Opsagent, something she becomes pretty effective as, however she craves to experience that which other 'teens' do in theoutside World......a World she has little understanding of.Whilst on a mission to capture her Nemesis 'Valerie' (Jessica Alba) she fakes her own death to become an exchange studentand for the first time finding out what it's like to live life in a family orianted enviroment (well, almost normal) she moves inthe 'Larson's' - 'Mrs Larson' (Rachael Harris) teen 'Liz' (Dove Cameron) and young 'Parker' (Jason Ian Drucker) and subsequentlyattends the local High-School ....a dream come true ?'Megan' initially struggles to fit in and doesn't find what she believed to be normal that easy.....Back at Op's her Senior Officer 'Hardman' (Samuel L Jackson) never believed number '83' (Megan) had actually died on the earliermission and wants er back in the fold.....however she convinces him to let her continue with her new life to see where it goes forher.Back at High-School 'Megan' finds that 'number '84' 'Heather' (Sophie Turner/ Game of Thrones) has been placed under-cover andwill prove troublesome.'Hardman' after losing some of his agents could really do with his best student back in Special-Op's ...Agent '83' will soon understand why as she too becomes a target leaving her to fight for her survival.In many ways this does have the feel of a teeny-movie, though it does have some good action sequences along the way along with agood measure of humour.An okay (fun-film) worth a spin if only as perhaps a catch-up on a movie-channel sometime.Score - 7/10

I bought this after seeing actress Hailee Stein field taking the lead in the transformer film 'Bumblebee'. I was very impressed with her performance, as I had never really heard of her before so I looked to see what else she has done. This was one I came across, which again she played a very good part in I look forward to seeing her in other films.

Miss-sold teen High School comedy action flick. This is fun from beginning to end. Myself and my daughters (aged 12 and 15) loved it. It's not particularly violent and I didn't notice any obvious bad language. There's no sex. There is lots of fun though as a teen girl raised as an assassin tries to blend into a regular High School. Lots of fun.

Even Jessica Alba’s brief appearance could not save this disaster. Staying awake will be difficult as it starts off bad then gets worse. Poor acting daft story predictable and boring .