Mean Girls (2024)

<<

Now Playing

>>

I'll just come out and say it, the original 'Mean Girls' is a pretty great movie. While on the surface it seems like a movie that only speaks to high school girls who are struggling with popularity, the truth of the matter is that it's a movie that further reaches out to anyone who has ever fallen under the "unpopular" category in their school years, complete with being bullied, manipulated, outcast, whatever the case may be. So, yeah, it's something that speaks to pretty much everyone - even the popular kids who went too far at some point or another.

The film has since been deemed a comedy classic by many, and it's well known for bringing a few young stars into the spotlight like Rachel McAdams, ​Amanda Seyfried, Lizzy Caplan, and to a lesser extent, Lacey Chabert (already pretty well-known from 'Party of Five' at the time). And while this is basically the exact same story, but covered in some pretty solid musical numbers, I might suggest this could do the same thing with a whole new crew of actors I'm altogether unfamiliar with. It's a very faithful remake, but I have to say, it's also a bit of a carbon copy, and they don't do a whole lot of "new" here apart from the musical numbers.

For those who may be a little unfamiliar with the story, we meet Cady Heron (Angourie Rice), who moves to America from Kenya with her Mother (Jenna Fischer), and changes from being homeschooled to attending high school. Her first day is a bit rough, but she befriends a girl named Janis (Auli'i Cravalho) and her gay best friend, Damian (Jaquel Spivey), replacing Ian; my favourite character in both the original AND this one, so not much change in characters here aside from making them more diverse, which I have to credit the film for. As it was before, the pair show Cady around and introduce her to the different cliques to see where she might fit in.

The most popular clique, dubbed the "Plastics", consists of three of the most popular girls in school; Karen Shetty (Avantika) who replaces the airhead, Karen Smith of the original, a new version of Gretchen Wieners (Bebe Wood) and a new version of the queen bee, herself, Regina George (Reneé Rapp), who probably carries the most impressive musical numbers throughout the film, although everyone is still quite good. One day the Plastics have Cady sit with them, and "allow" her into their group essentially based on the fact that she's pretty and "could" be a part of their clique.

Janis and Damian then put their heads together with Cady to use her as a sort of mole to spy on the Plastics, essentially for a laugh and to maybe get some info on these "perfect" girls to knock them down a peg. In the meantime, Cady falls for a young man in her class named Aaron (Christopher Briney), Regina's ex, which also becomes the start of Cady's real problems. Eventually, just like the original, the whole thing becomes a message about a combination of bullying, scheming, and just being an asshole and how in the end, it's never really worth it. You don't want to become something you don't like. At least that's my main takeaway.

Truth be told, if you've seen the original, you've basically seen this already, so it's not something I can just immediately recommend to anyone who likes the original and may be stuck on it being the "only" 'Mean Girls'. Having said that, one should also at least see that this version is a little more diverse, some of the musical numbers are rather good, and I'd probably say that it's a solid watch for a new generation of high-schoolers whose parents grew up with the original. There's even a few solid cameos here from old stars like Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Busy Phillips of 'Freaks & Geeks' fame (who fits in here very well as Regina's mother) and even Lindsay Lohan, herself, who originally played cady.

I suppose at the end of the day it all boils down to which one you'd prefer. I might suggest that the original places a better focus on the overall story and characters, and less on the sex appeal which, if I'm honest, runs pretty rampant throughout the film, especially with Karen's character who may feel a bit more insulting here than Seyfried's Karen in the original, who was far funnier. This is one of thsoe cases where the film is perfectly fine for what it is, and newcomers to the story may prefer it. But it's my humble opinion that the original is actually quite a bit better. To each their own, though.

3/5

---