Barely Lethal

I'm not gonna lie, this film is basically high school story meets spy thriller for teens. Agent 83 (Hailee Steinfeld) works for a government group named Prescott, which teaches orphans at a young age to kill targets by following mission profiles. Victoria Knox (Jessica Alba), a weapons dealer, is one of the targets of Hardman (Samuel L. Jackson), the leader of the Prescotts, is looking for. In an encounter with Knox, Agent 83 is reported inactive, and Agent 84, another Prescott, takes over.

Wanting to have a normal life like normal people, Agent 83 goes undercover with the name, Megan, as an exchange student from Canada. At first, Megan faces a lot of pressure from high school, but eventually learns to face it upfront and to stick with her new family. At the same time, Victoria Knox escapes prison, and plans to kill Megan once and for all.

Acting was pretty good to brilliant in this film. Hailee Steinfeld was believable, and she really did well to act her role as a government spy and a high schooler. Both Jessica Alba and Samuel L. Jackson were brilliant, and it seemed as though they were enjoying their roles. The rest of the cast were good or brilliant as well, some were even impressive.

The plot points were laced out well and were easy to follow through. However, there are some scenes in the film that weren't necessary, for instance, Gooch's party. They could have used another way to lay out the scenes for boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, but nonetheless, the film was entertaining and at the very least, watchable.

Despite the good acting and plot, the action scenes were very mediocre, predictable, and at some points, boring. For example, there was a scene were Agent 84 reveals herself as a double agent, and attacks Megan. The scene was filled with boring, monotone, speeches and dissing, and then ended with a predictable stab by Liz (Dove Cameron), one of the people in Megan's new family.

The ending scene was predictable and clichéd with Victoria Knox taking over Megan's new family and having a one on one duel with Megan. Knox pulls out the clichéd "He (in reference to Hardman) won't be back" quote, and finds out that he came back for Megan. Although the scene was at least slightly entertaining, it was too easy to guess what was going to happen next.

I suppose, for a teen film, it was overall, entertaining and watchable. Although the film had some mediocre and boring moments, this is a film you can definitely decide to watch in your free time.