St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (4 Stars)

This is the second film in the rebooted St. Trinian's franchise. It takes place one year after the previous film and begins on the first day of the school year as the girl's arrive at the school. Kelly Jones, the head girl in the previous film, played by Gemma Arterton, has now left the school and joined MI7. It's a British Secret Intelligence agency that specialises in carrying out illegal operations that are in the national interest. The end justifies the means. The organisation is so secret that not even MI6 knows it exists. Kelly returns briefly to help her old school friends.

So who's the new head girl? None other than Annabelle Fritton, who joined the school in the last film. It helps being related to the headmistress.

David Tennant is the dastardly evil bad guy in this film. He does it so well. He plays Sir Piers Pomfrey, the leader of AD1, a secret organisation that is dedicated to resist feminism and keep women subjugated. "Women are for making cakes and babies", as Sir Pomfrey eloquently describes his agenda. The organisation was founded in 1559 as a reaction to Elisabeth becoming the Queen of England, and it has existed ever since. Now his path crosses with St. Trinian's, because he wants to find the gold hidden by Miss Fritton's ancestor, a notorious pirate.

David Tennant wears a purple robe for his role. That's very appropriate.

If a pompous, evil, sexist man wants to suppress womankind, there's only one solution. A gang of schoolgirls have to cut him down to size, and which schoolgirls can fight better than the bad girls of St. Trinian's?

Despite being less of a success with the public, I find this film much better than the last film. Battle of the Sexes films are always enjoyable, because we know from the beginning who will win. What I also like about this film is that it concentrates on the older schoolgirls, the sixth form girls. There are only brief scenes with the younger girls.

And guess who plays the school's oddball receptionist!

Because of its failure at the box office it's unlikely that another sequel will be made. That's a shame. It was fun while it lasted. Maybe there will be another reboot one day, with even sexier schoolgirls.

I'n curious why it was never released in America. Were there too many complaints about sexualising underage schoolgirls in the first film? If you check the bios of the cast you'll see that the fifth and sixth form girls, supposedly aged 15 to 18, were played by actresses in their twenties. The members of the pop group Girls Aloud appear in both films. They look a lot better than they sing.

	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de