St. Trinian’s

English accents may make people sound classier, but does it actually make for a classier person? Evidence for the prosecution—the sadistically unfun British hit St. Trinian’s is currently in preproduction on its second sequel. St. Trinian’s follows a tried and true teen comedy blueprint (one in which terrorism is acceptable, but snobbery is beyond reproach), but the writing and directing are incompetent enough to make the American Pie series seem almost humorous by comparison. A gang of young hoodlums at a bottom-of-the-barrel boarding school haze the new girl, blow stuff up, cheat at field hockey—then decide to steal Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” for some stupid reason. The real crime is that otherwise competent British actors—Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Stephen Fry and Russell Brand among them—wasted their time slumming in this slop.