Treading the same halls as “Kick-Ass” and “Kingsman,” “Barely Lethal” imagines an academy of teen assassins. Life there is deadly, but not as scary as high school.

Hailee Steinfeld plays the kid raised to be a killer who slips away from her mentor, played by Samuel L. Jackson in yet another pointless résumé-padding effort. Joining a foster family, she tries to navigate the ways of high school cliques and crushes as a senior assassin (Jessica Alba) closes in on her.

Essentially a one-joke affair — playing the team mascot, the kid killer beats the tar out of pranksters whom she mistakes for fellow hired guns — the movie has a few cute moments, but for the most part it’s as predictable as being bored in trigonometry.