Imagine rifling through your DVD collection and grabbing Salt, Get Smart, 16 Candles & Fatal Attraction and throwing them all into a blender. Aside from getting a lot of DVD splinters in your face, you'll get an experience like none other.

"Barely Lethal" is the story of a teenage girl who is a highly trained assassin but she can't survive a week in high school. The setup is brilliant. Almost satirical, but not quite, it takes us to the realm of utter absurdity, but underneath it all is a solid metaphor about the difficulties of adolescence. This is a timeless story which is why it's fun for all ages & demographics. I'm male and old enough that I saw "The Breakfast Club" in the movie theater when it came out ...and I loved this flick.

If you are prepared for some wild wtf swings in plot, tone, theme and presentation (or even better, if you can see it as part of this film's charm) then you might love this flick, too. In the Making-Of bonus features, you can see that the entire cast is having a blast and acting like teenagers during filming. This translates into great on-screen chemistry as well as some genuine silly fun. As 40-year-old Dan Fogler (the hilarious Mr. Drumm) says, "My maturity level definitely dropped a few points."

The comedy is mostly situational; in other words there aren't a ton of punchline gags & snappy zingers, but there are several great LOL moments worth the price of admission. There are also some wonderfully unexpected role-reversals, such as the scene where our nerdy heroine meets the cheerleader gang for the first time. And I saved the best for last: the climactic fight scene! Physically impressive, dramatically intense, and logistically HILARIOUS (it happens on the dance floor at homecoming),the action in this flick may be over the top, but that's sorta the point. A+ for originality in being the only teen romance flick in history which takes us to a knockdown, dragout, punchbowl shattering fight scene at a dance. If you can get past the "wtf" factor, you'll have a great time.

I decided to watch this movie because Samuel L. Jackson was in it. I found it on Netflix and had not even heard about it prior to stumbling upon it. I read the synopsis, but wasn't overly reeled in by it, as it had that teenage-generic-action-comedy vibe to it.

I will say that "Barely Legal" actually turned out to be far better than I had initially hoped or thought it would be, given the synopsis for the movie. And it turned out to be rather entertaining. Sure, it had those sappy moments that are seen in these particular movies, but it worked out well enough.

The storyline, despite being so generic and predictable that it was oozing off of it, actually still turned out to be entertaining for what it was. This doesn't challenge the viewer intellectually, so just unwind, lean back and enjoy the ride.

They had some good performers in the movie, and it was nice to see Jessica Alba in the role that she had. And of course Samuel L. Jackson was good, just a shame that he hadn't a more prominent role to play. Hailee Steinfeld actually turned out to be a rather good choice for the lead, as she definitely stood her ground and performed well.

All in all, you know what you are getting yourself into here with a movie such as this, and the movie does play on every available trick that has been seen before in similar movies. But it still worked out quite well.

The idea behind Barely Lethal is that the government has some sort of top secret program that adopts orphan girls and trains them to be ninja-like assassins. Sounds a bit like Spy Kids and at least the first Spy Kids film was good. So, I went into watching this film with relatively high expectations--especially when it's billed as a comedy. Plus the boss is played by Samuel L. Jackson...and everyone loves Samuel L. Jackson, right?

There is trouble brewing at this secret agency. Megan (Hailee Steinfeld) is a great little killer but secretly she harbors a dream to be a normal teenage girl. When it looks like she's been killed on a mission she decides to use this opportunity to disappear and reinvent herself as a high school student so that she can experience a normal life. So why did the film utterly fail for me? Well, the film appeared to be a comedy but almost never made me laugh. A HUGE infusion of humor really would have helped. It was at times just too serious. Additionally, the film much like any teen film--with the same clichés (such as the nerdy but nice guy she meets but ignores until she finally realizes he's dreamy...just like I saw in The Duff and several other teen films) and same inappropriate content (such as the hilarious notion of calling one of the characters 'Rape-it Ralph'--which is about as funny as jokes about pedophilia or cancer). The bottom line is that the film started off with nice credits, an interesting premise and then it just went nowhere for me. In the film's defense, I am not exactly the target audience but shouldn't any audience deserve a bit better than a by the numbers teen film that promises to be different but really, down deep, isn't? Plus...Rape-it Ralph?!?!

If you care, the film was just released on DVD this week to Netflix but I think you could do so much better, such as the great OLD teen movie Better Off Dead...now THAT is a funny and original teen movie!