Review of St Trinian's (2007) by Cal ( — 23 Apr 2009

"Daddy, you can't expect me to stay here. It's like Hogwarts for Pikeys!".

St Trinian's proudly continues to represent the unacceptable face of British education. When the new Minister of Education announces he will personally sort the place out he doesn't realise either the enormity of the task. Additionally, the school is threatened with closure by their bank; with the staff clearly a waste of space the girls realise the responsibility to save the day falls on them.

When I first started watching this I felt an impending sense of doom, something I so dearly should've listened to.

The script obviously seeks to portray the girls as lovable rascals that you should like and want to succeed, but they just come off as little bastards one couldn't give a toss about. A sort of modern heist film, the writing is bland and crude jokes are chucked in that make the characters seem slutty, rather than rebellious. One liners are added in periodically that manage to elicit a chuckle, but nothing more.

Rupert Everett merely looks like a bad drag queen and acts worse than one, obviously under the impression that making his voice slightly higher and adding a lisp would fool the audience into believing he was a woman. His performance is one of the low notes of the entire movie. Colin Firth is simply phoning it in. The supporting cast is wasted - characters like Lena Headey's and the Matron present the opportunity to be developed slightly and included in the plot a bit more, but are reduced to barely any lines and of practically no importance or need. Russell Brand's natural flair for comedy is reduced to a mere spark, playing a love-struck, somewhat dim-witted criminal teacher by the book. However, amongst the rest of the cast, his moments in front of the camera manage to shine. The main cast, of all the girls such as Gemma Arterton, aren't really memorable.

The soundtrack is just used too much, entirely unnecessary (and slightly distracting) at some points. A modern twist has been added to the kind music you always hear when someone's attempting to pull off a robbery, but this adds nothing - we know it's a contemporary story, there's no need to shove it in our faces. It would've served better to leave a classic spin to the music and try to create some sort of homage to the old heist films.

Overall, a wholly forgettable movie.