Mean Girls

2004's Mean Girls is an all-time classic film. The Broadway musical adaptation of more recent vintage is a solid and engaging adaption of it. This re-framing of the original and the musical is an odd--and largely ineffective--mishmash of the two that needed to "pick a lane".

For a very basic overview, Mean Girls is a quasi-remake of the '04 original, featuring new-girl-to-school Cady Herron (Angourie Rice) being shepherded by friends Janice (Auli'i Cravalho) & Damian (Jaquel Spivey) through the high school experience--most notably the Plastics trio of Regina George (Renee Rapp) and her minions Karen (Avantika) & Gretchen (Bebe Wood).

I'll start with the one piece of good news here: there are just enough entertaining songs in this flick to keep it from being outright boring. "Revenge Party" & "Sexy" are absolute bangers, and a few others are quite engaging too. There were a few times when I was ready to metaphorically throw in the towel on Mean Girls, but then another song would unspool and keep me hooked a bit longer.

The big problem with this sequel/update/reboot, however, is that it tries to have its cake and eat it too. Had this been a "Mean Girls for the next generation" flick, I think it would have succeeded wildly. Unfortunately, despite elements of that approach, it is far too "shot-for-shot-remake" of the '04 version to tell much of a new story.

Or, writer Tina Fey could have simply done a more straight-up adaptation of the Broadway musical--which is fantastic! That show is filled with heart and the proper homage to the original material without being burdened with repetition of it.

Sadly, this version tries to walk the beam between the two and ends up tumbling off. It simultaneously feels like an unnecessary remake of the original and an unnecessary clipping of the musical. Not even some great musical numbers can mitigate that.

I really wanted to like this one. I really did. I love the original, and of course, i know this is a different movie, based on the Broadway musical based on the original (and all written by Tina Fey). Of course i know that there was no need for a direct remake, since the original was near perfection. However, this just didn't work. There was no chemistry, no motivation for the characters. I did like that it's done from Damian and Janice's point of view. But the rest of it feels flat.

The positives - Renee Rapp has a voice on her, as does Jeremy Spivey. For me they were the highlights of the show. There are some cute moments. Some new lines, but nothing really memorable or quotable.

So, meh. It was OK.

Wanna experience a headache caused by an avalanche of failed jokes? Try watching this flick for more than 15 minutes.

The bad: I tried, I really tried to watch it through, but what's painfully obvious from the very start is that the jokes all fall flat. I just didnt laugh once. What's a comedy without some solid jokes? But then again, comedy is quite personal, perhaps a teenage crowd wont mind the avalanche of lame jokes, that gave me a headache.

Not any good then? Tina Fey wrote this stuff. She often gets it right when it comes to comedy, I love some of her other work, but somehow this movie just tanked.

A poor imitation of the original. It follows the same plot line and events as the original movie, but does it in a way that it so cringe and painful to watch. The movie felt like a theatrical high school musical play. The musical part did not help the movie in anyway. And some of the songs and scenes were so cringe, like when they pretend to be animals. The movie had a really strong massage about not bullying or putting people down, because we are all just people with feelings at the end of the day...

The film moved really quickly because it had to make room for the singing. It was over the top light and airy. The movie feels like it's trying too hard to be funny. If anything the movie felt like a parody, mocking the original film. By the middle of the movie I wanted to walk out, it got so boring and exhausting to watch.

The entire film can be summed up in this one message, they push really hard. "Calling someone ugly is not gonna make you better looking. Calling someone else stupid does not make you any smarter. And as women we have to be able to trust and support each other"

Too similar to the original, though the musical moments do help alleviate that.

I didn't necessarily like any of the songs performed in 2024's 'Mean Girls', but none of them grated on me - which is always a plus when it comes to musicals. I could've done with a slightly shorter run time, though the humour is decent - if a bit hit-and-miss.

Angourie Rice is a bit meh in the lead role, certainly a downgrade on Lindsay Lohan. I guess most of the cast are inferior comparatively, but I did enjoy the performances of Reneé Rapp and Jaquel Spivey... Auli'i Cravalho too. Good to see Tina Fey and Tim Meadows back again, whilst there's a great cameo at one point.

All things considered, it's fine. Can't wait for the 2044 remake.