The stakes are life or death. If Julie (Vega) and her pals don't succeed they face social oblivion at the high school lunch spot next to the dumpster.

On the other hand, success brings the glory and prestige of a picnic table next to the fountain. How will they handle the pressure?

After a series of teen movies - Freaky Friday, Mean Girls - that cleverly satisfied their target market as well as pitching themselves at adults, this is firmly the fare of the Barbie doll generation.

Julie has invited her chums - Hannah (Boorem), Farrah (Taylor-Compton) and Yancy (Childress) - to a slumber party while mum is out and dad is mending the sink.

However, bitchy It Girl Staci (Paxton) gets dumped and decides to salvage her wounded pride by challenging the juniors to a scavenger hunt.

So Julie & Co have to sneak out of the house, dress a shop dummy in their clothes, date an older guy at a disco, pinch the school hunk's boxers and grab the prom crown.

This all takes place in that strange teen movieland of manicured lawns, clapboard houses the size of a small country with German-built SUVs parked in the drive.

It's pretty inoffensive stuff if you are not overly distracted by Vega's hairstyle varying depending on which room she happens to be in at the time.

You get the impression the girls are so not hip - they shimmy along to The Spice Girls and resemble miniature versions of their surgery-sculpted moms.

At one stage, after spotting mum out clubbing, Julie is moved to comment: "She can't wiggle like that - she's got a Volvo".

Undaunted by her morphing coiffure, Julie hooks up with her man, Staci gets her come-uppance and even the fat bird gets to snog a fat bloke.

Girls, girls, girls...if only real life was quite as simple.

Tim Evans