613. St. Trinian’s 2: The Legend Of Fritton’s Gold (2009)

Starring: Talulah Riley, Rupert Everett, David Tennant

Director: Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson

Running Time: 101 mins

St. Trinian’s 2: The Legend Of Fritton’s Gold is a British film, and the sequel to St. Trinian’s. At the beginning of the new school year, the girls must do battle against a determined cult to find an historic ring that leads to a deep secret.

Well, although this is still quite an entertaining film, it’s nowhere near as riotous as the first one. The comedy is a little bit downgraded, there’s less racy jokes and more simple parodies, to make it more inclusive for the kids, while the story is a lot more simplistic and stupid, nowhere near as convincing and fun as the one in the first film.

However, I’ll start by saying that this is still enjoyable to watch. It doesn’t delve so far into its preposterous story that it becomes simply irritating, it’s rather simple enough to watch without having a brain.

Whether you think that’s good or bad, I don’t know, but it’s always nice to occasionally watch a silly film with little intelligence, because for kids, it’s perfectly entertaining, and for anyone else, it’s quite relaxing.

Despite that, however, I still think that this is nowhere near up to scratch when you compare it to the previous film. That was a bit more original, a lot smaller and a lot ruder, which definitely embodied the spirit of the concept set out in the original 1950s film, whereas this sequel is a lot more family-friendly, never laugh-out-loud hilarious, and has a story that is just too big and stupid.

You could believe the National Gallery heist from the 2007 film, it seemed a bit outlandish, but it was well-explained enough that you could go along with it. However, this film deals with much higher stakes, including exposing sexist organisations, a completely over-the-top treasure hunt that could change the course of history, etc., and that really is very annoying to see.

Overall, then, this gets a 6.5, because although it may still be a relatively entertaining film, it’s nowhere near as fun and convincing as the first film.