The St Trinian’s girls are back for more panto-flavoured girl power in this sequel. Last time it was slick, dominatrix-style Kelly Jones (Gemma Arterton) running the show. Now she’s off being a super-spy, it’s down to meek Annabelle Fritton (Talulah Riley) to inherit the head girl role and learn to lead.
Annabelle’s first task is a typically preposterous one: organise a hunt for ancient hidden treasure. Luckily for her, each group of classroom stereotypes have different attributes to bring to the table. The geeks know about latitude and longitude, the posh totties know about showing some leg, the rude girls know about turning a boys’ choir into beatbox rappers. All useful stuff, it turns out, as the central group run around fending off bad guys and infiltrating male institutions: at first a school, then a secret society run by the misogynist Lord Pomfrey (David Tennant).
There’s a very basic, blatant message of female empowerment – the only decent male character is Camilla Fritton’s former beau Geoffrey Thwaites (Colin Firth) and he’s turned into a rambling alcoholic. The conclusion is a particularly clumsy attempt at a feminist revision of history.
But don’t let that fool you. This is all about the screaming soundtrack, the funky outfits, the leggy blondes and the one-liners. A few of the gags work, most don’t - suffice to say Rupert Everett is 90% responsible for the good ones. Firth and Tennant also make the best out of very limited roles.
This is, as ever, one for the kids, although even they may wonder why Sarah Harding is playing a schoolgirl at the grand old age of 28. Couldn’t they write in a new cool teacher or something?
