Welcome to St Trinian's School For Young Ladies, or "Hogwarts for pikeys" as one of its characteristically eloquent young pupils describes it, where the bursar "never makes mistakes about money - except for tax purposes", and where making it down the drive is "qualification enough". Take a firm grip on your hockey stick, push down your socks, hitch up your skirt, and prepare to encounter the belles of St. Trinian's, who are ageing remarkably gracefully thanks to their twenty-first century facelift.

Love them or hate them, the original St. Trinian's films from the 1960s are a cinematic institution. Alistair Sim and Joyce Grenfell took on their starring roles with such evident relish as to become synonymous with their characters, so much so that they managed to block from the collective memory any recollection of the school's original incarnation in Ronald Searle's darkly witty cartoons of the 1940s and '50s. With titles that included Back to the Slaughterhouse, these were no gentle tales of girlish escapades, but rather more adult fare; students drank, smoked, gambled (and occasionally murdered) with equal skill and apparent enjoyment, and the mistresses had morals as loose as the girls' school ties.

This new millennium remake certainly stays true to the spirit (tequila?) of Searle's originals, while casting out any hint of nostalgia in an aggressively contemporary treatment; school cliques expand to include the Chavs and Emos alongside the Geeks and Posh Totty, all playing obediently to stereotype, and dormitory japes are streamed live to YouTube.

Rupert Everett takes on the mantle (in this case a pink velour tracksuit) of Alistair Sim, as free-thinking headmistress Miss Camilla Fritton, along with Colin Firth who, as the fascist Minister of Education and sometime love-interest of Camilla, shares some unusually, um, touching scenes with his co-star. Stephen Fry also appears in a cameo role as School Challenge Quizmaster. As to the Young Ladies themselves, it's a remake, so you know the drill: their wit is a little duller, their jokes rather dirtier, their tops very much lower, and their skirts dramatically shorter than the originals, a trade-off which, on balance, seems ample in its compensations.