Movie review: So Undercover

(12A)

As the turbulent careers of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan attest, it’s not easy for teen performers to reinvent themselves as grown-ups. Miley Cyrus is now in her 20s and her Hannah Montana days are behind her.

In this misfiring action comedy, she plays a streetwise private investigator hired by the FBI to go undercover at a snobbish college sorority for reasons the plot doesn’t make entirely clear. The ever grinning Cyrus is a cheery enough screen presence and British director Tom Vaughan (of Cold Feet fame) does his best to put some snap in the storytelling but the concept – blue-collar girl in among the debs – is feeble and very derivative.