D.E.B.S. is a 2004 film based on a 2003 short that made the rounds at the film festival circuit. The 2003 short was a silly story about a team of college girl spies and the romantic relationship of one of the spies with the archvillain. The 2004 production expands it into a feature film with a fair dose of camp.The D.E.B.S. are a large group of young women superspies. They are first screened by a secret portion of the SATs that test whether someone has the aptitude to lie, cheat, fight, and kill. Those who pass screening are recruited into the D.E.B.S. spy academy.The plot begins with one of the squads being tasked with staking out villainess Lucy Diamond. One member of the squad, Amy has always been fascinated by Lucy Diamond and is even writing a thesis on her. The stake out goes wrong and it ends up turning into a gun fight. Just afterwards, while chasing Lucy, Amy and Lucy end up meeting face to face. Despite holding each other at gunpoint, Lucy and Amy start talking to each other. After a distraction helps Lucy escape, it's revealed that Lucy is starting to really fall for Amy...Despite taking place in a Charlie's Angels-style spy universe, D.E.B.S is actually more of a YuriRomantic Comedy than anything else.D.E.B.S. provides examples of:
Billing Displacement: Dominique is barely in the film yet she gets equal credit with all the other D.E.B.S.
Bi the Way: Seems to be the case for Dominique; Amy having a same-sex experience doesn't faze her at all, and she goes out of her way to point out "it's not a big deal in Europe!" (And then, left alone: "Ce n'est pas grande chose en Europe...")
Brake Angrily: While Lucy Diamond and Scud are driving away from the restaurant after the gunfight, Lucy tells Scud that she "met somebody" and he brakes the car to a halt in surprise.
Call Back: A joke near the end is very similar to one near the beginning: "And what did I say to you the very first day at the Academy?" and "What did I say to you the first time we met?"
Camp Straight: Scud: catty, gives Lucy relationship advice, wears a lot of pink, and... gets into a relationship with one of the D.E.B.S. girls.
Designated Victim: In the short film the D.E.B.S. are annoyed that Amy keeps getting kidnapped by villainess Lucy In The Sky, unaware that it's all just to cover for their Dating Catwoman relationship.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: The D.E.B.S. uniform includes a plaid skirt. The forcefield surrounding their house uses the same plaid pattern and colors. After Lucy breaks in twice, she points out it doesn't offer much defence. Hmmm.
Janet: "You need to speak English or French. Frenglish is not a language."
Fake Nationality: Devon Aoki's terrible French accent is something that must be heard to be believed.
Five-Token Band: Roger Ebert in his review basically said there is little to tell the main characters apart except for their race.
Four Girl Ensemble: The starring D.E.B.S. squad is pretty much a textbook case with promiscuous Dominique, naive Janet, obsessive Max and self searching Amy.
Fun with Acronyms: D.E.B.S. stands for Discipline, Energy, Beauty, and Strength, but is obviously short for 'debutantes'. Strangely enough, everyone refers to individual agents as "a D.E.B.", despite the S standing for something. (Evidently, their strength is in numbers.)
Heel Face Turn: Sort of. Amy gets Lucy to try and show she's not that bad having her return money she stole with a note saying sorry among other things.
Hyperspace Arsenal: Where Lucy Diamond carries her gun and extra ammo clips when she's wearing skin-tight clothing.
Hypocritical Humor: Max states that Amy (who's in a position she doesn't want or like, and is panicky as hell) doesn't know Formation Alpha Gamma. She might not, but the formation she gave was Alpha Kappa Gamma.
Innocent Innuendo: Inverted in the short film — the other D.E.B.S. think Amy is being tortured and desperately try to break down a door to free her, but her screams are actually caused by Lucy bringing her to climax.
Shoot Out the Lock: While the protagonists are secretly meeting with Lucy Diamond at Endgame, Bobby shoots a padlock that's securing a door leading to their location.
Technical Pacifist: Despite her reputation Lucy claims she's never actually killed anyone; all the agents chasing her died of environmental causes. Her willingness to place Amy's friends under a Descending Ceiling with Spikes of Doom shows she might not be entirely truthful about this. Well, the ceiling is part of that environment... And there are plenty of ways to give someone food poisoning or get them to die of frostbite by, say, leaving them stranded on an ice field...
Tempting Fate: While in the bank vault, Amy says "See? That wasn't so hard." Then a Trap Door opens under her, sending her down a secret underground slide.
Throwing Out The Script: Amy is given a speech to read at End Game which tells a false story of how Lucy Diamond kidnapped her and held her hostage. She starts reading it to the crowd, but halfway through she stops reading it and tells the truth: that the time she spent with Lucy were the happiest days of her life and that she's leaving to be with Lucy.
Woman Scorned: Ninotchka tells the D.E.B.S. how to find Lucy, jealous after seeing her happy with someone else.
You Need to Get Laid: Lucy keeps backing out on dates claiming food poisoning and taking her frustrations out in Dr Evil type schemes. Scud even says so to her face.
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