Delayed Reaction: Barely Lethal

Premise: A teenage spy tries to leave that life to live as a normal teen.

 

There isn't much to say about this movie. I love that you can tell the year of release from the cast alone. Hailee Steinfeld had an awkward period from about True Grit (2010) to The Edge of Seventeen (2016) where she had an Oscar nomination and seemed likely to be a star, but no one was quite sure what kind of star. She did everything from indie dramadies (Begin Again, Hateship Loveship) to teen romances (Romeo and Juliet) to potential franchises (Ender's Game). She even returned to Westerns, prestige (The Homesman) and otherwise (The Keeping Room). Oh, forgettable action movies too where she's "the kid" (3 Days to Kill, Term Life). Pitch Perfect 2 was her teen comedy, even though she was just joining and established ensemble.  Barely Lethal is the experiment to see how she worked as an action star herself. Shortly after  Barely Lethal, she got more selective about her projects and committed her free time to a music career that doesn't feel like a long-term play. Then again, I really don't know what music is popular. Maybe she'll be a Will Smith. So yeah, you can place where in Steinfeld's career this exists pretty easily. It also has mid-Game of Thrones Sophie Turner, when it seemed logical that everyone to come out of the show would have an action movie. There's Dove Cameron, right in the middle of the Liv and Maddie run, hinting at her first chafing at being in the Disney Channel machine. There's Jessica Alba, a few years past when anyone was trying to make her a movie star but a couple years before moving back to TV. The only one in the cast you can't place is Samuel L. Jackson. This man has Marvel money, favor with auteurs like Spike Lee and Quinten Tarantino, and invitations to be a supporting character in virtually any hundred-million-dollar action movie he wants. What is he doing picking up roles like this? The man must really like working, I guess.

 

The movie itself is quite forgettable beyond the cast. The title is clever until you really think about it, at which point it gets cringy. It's a light A24 action comedy, which means it's not really getting a huge budget or the biggest names in action filmmaking. Understandably, the set pieces aren't all that impressive. There's a lot of cutting during fights to mask the lack of training of the central cast and how often stunt doubles are employed. The idea of a spy living a normal life isn't that original at this point. It tends to rely on the comedy mined out of the premise to be special, and Barely Lethal is more fun than funny. Dove Cameron actually has the best comedy chops in this of the young cast*. I'll never speak ill of Hailee Steinfeld, so I'll just say these filmmakers weren't quite sure about her strengths.

 

*Rachel Harris is obviously the comedy MVP of the adults.

 

This is a perfectly harmless yet entirely skippable movie. I mainly watched it for Hailee Steinfeld completionism, and at barely over 90 minutes, it's too short to complain much about its shortcomings.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend