National security never looked as good as it does in D.E.B.S., a new comedy about an upper-echelon girls’ academy, whose elite scholars are hand-picked from a secret test embedded within their SATs. Perfectly coiffed, plaid-skirt couture-ed, long-legged fighting machines, they are equally concerned about hair, lipstick, guns, true love and catching a super criminal named Lucy Diamond—a nefarious mastermind who’s never left a nemesis alive. Trouble brews when Lucy falls head over heels for the all-star D.E.B.

Will national security be breached? Will true love transcend crime and punishment? Will Cameron Diaz show up to knock some sense into everyone? Or at least Lucy Liu? All bets of that occurring are off when D.E.B.S. becomes a sweet lesbian coming-out love story, wedged into a traditional teenaged coming of age plot, and shoehorned into a top-secret teenaged spy actioner. Frankie Muniz, where are you when we need you?

Dolled up in high heels, with large guns and longer legs, the D.E.B.S. are: tough as nails leader Max (Meagan Good), lusty Asian with a thick Gallic accent, Dominique (Devon Aoki), air headed goof Janet (Jill Ritchie), and perfect-score brain and willowy blonde Amy (Sara Foster).

Enter Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster), a notorious thief and dangerous super criminal. A bungled D.E.B.S. ambush leads to love at first sight for Lucy…and possibly Amy. They begin a teasing forbidden tryst that threatens Amy’s reputation and D.E.B.S. Academy itself. What’s a young, beautiful, crime-fighting, coming-out-of-the-closet girl-next-door to do?

Say what you will about D.E.B.S., Angela Robinson’s feature-length film version of her acclaimed 2003 short of the same title. It’s funny, but in often silly ways. It’s a bit too long - stretched out but not that complex. It’s sexy, but not in the way you might expect. It’s titillating, but since it’s from a woman director it adds up to something completely different. And it’s got more than a few low-jinks mixed in with its thoughtful essay on young female sexuality, filtered through the lens of a quartet of appealing crime-fighting ingénues. Finally, it’s also clever in a way that most "bigger" movies are not, in the way it works its innocently subversive lesbian love story into a powderpuff fluff spy film, aimed at a squarely commercial audience.

Good girl Sarah Foster seems just right as a model-perfect mold of a teenaged girl in the familiar dilemma of following her head vs. her heart. In the film’s best moments with co-star Jordana Brewster, she captures the delicate emotions of a frustrated overachiever ready to eschew mighty expectations. She’s not only a girl falling in first love, but a girl falling in first love with another girl. And Brewster, the come-hither, raven-haired doll from The Fast and the Furious 2, is a sexy-funny-tough criminal, though she appears shockingly thin here. She gets that underneath the hardened criminal image is just an everyday, wholesome young lesbian dying for a date.

Jill Ritchie also contributes some laughs and spunk as the gawky underdog who holds the lovers’ secret. She’s funny as the girl you might recognize—an obnoxious, younger pest of a sister who hasn’t quite come into her own as a young woman, though her body is certainly trying.

Though the film occasionally reaches some gleeful comic highs and owes a debt of affection to sweet 80s pop music montages, which director Robinson clearly has an affinity for, it’s a mixed bag. What worked quite well as a speedy short film with one novel idea—teen girls as a lipstick lesbian justice league—doesn’t always fare as well in its longer-running incarnation, though there’s no lack of sincerity by the cast and director.

It’s refreshing to see a comedy that employs a high-concept, techno-gadgetry premise (with some very impressive visual effects) with action sequences expertly shot and edited—in service of a happy ending lesbian love story.

D.E.B.S. is little more than an engaging harem of legs, hair and attitude for the sake of silly entertainment, wrapped up in an age-old message about being true to oneself. And that, in this case, is enough. It’s not a great film by any stretch, but it’s an entertaining one I smiled all the way through.