Mean Girls (2024): Film Review
I have seen the original Mean Girls countless times and it is one of my favourite films of all time. It is a classic and the benchmark for all other teen comedies. I didn’t have much faith in this movie musical reboot but it wasn’t as bad as I had feared.
I’m sure you all know the story but here’s a recap for any newcomers out there. After years of being homeschooled, Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) joins North Shore High School, where she gets drawn into the circle of the popular Plastics, made up of Regina (Renee Rapp), Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). After Regina steals Cady’s crush Aaron (Christopher Briney), she gets revenge on Regina with the help of her friends Janice (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey).
This Mean Girls (based on the stage musical adaptation of the 2004 film) was never going to be as good as the original because it is untouchable. The plot, humour, insults and bitchiness were of their time and don’t really work now. Tina Fey (who also wrote the original and the stage musical) updated the script a lot; incorporating social media and bringing it in line with today’s sensibilities by sanitising its bite. I found it interesting what plot points and lines were kept exactly the same (outside of the obvious iconic ones) and what was cut or changed, for example, Dawn Schweitzer is no longer a “fat virgin” and joining the Mathletes is “socially ruinous” instead of “social suicide”.
Small parts of the story were also dispensed with to make way for the musical numbers, which were very poor lyrically – I internally groaned when I heard Rapp sing that the school “humps my leg like a chihuahua”. There are a lot of really bad lines like that. But you can almost forgive them when they’re accompanied by great visuals or sung beautifully. I loved all the ones involving Cravalho and Spivey, they have gorgeous voices, and the Revenge Party and Sexy sequences were so much fun. The Halloween section was awesome in general actually.
I love Rice in many other projects but she didn’t feel right for Cady. She’s too cute and nice, which doesn’t work in the latter half, and her singing voice is very weak. With most of the cast, I didn’t compare them to their original counterparts because I enjoyed and embraced them doing their own thing. I couldn’t help doing that with Rice and Briney. I’m sorry for being shallow but Briney is no Jonathan Bennett. It also felt weird seeing Fey and Tim Meadows repeating lines from the first film as Ms. Norbury and Principal Duvall once again.
Rapp was excellent as Regina – she had the perfect bitchy vibe – but she wasn’t in it enough and her songs weren’t memorable. My favourites were Cravalho and Spivey – they had great personalities, made me laugh and their numbers were awesome – and Busy Philipps was hilarious as Regina’s mum. Absolutely perfect. Avantika also did a great Karen but her lines weren’t as strong as Amanda Seyfried‘s. Most of the new lines weren’t as strong actually.
I tried my best to give this film a fair, objective go but it was difficult because I know the first film so well and kept thinking, “They’ve changed, they’ve cut that, that line delivery is different.” But I liked it better when it brought something new to the table and didn’t redo lines that were spot-on the first time.
There is a huge improvement in diversity and representation, it’s more sensitive to people’s weight, sexuality etc, and I’m sure it will entertain the younger generation but Mean Girls (2004) did everything else better and I will always choose that one over this.
In cinemas now