Are you a fan of wearing pink on Wednesday? Got a love of showtunes? Maybe a fondness for the modern day classic? If you answered yes to any of those questions, and even if you didn’t, have I got a movie for you!
This last weekend I didn’t have much to do so I decided to watch “Mean Girls” (2024). “Hold on,” I hear you saying through whatever device or piece of paper you’re reading this from, “Didn’t ‘Mean Girls’ come out in 2004?”
Why yes, it did, but this is not your mother’s “Mean Girls,” as the tagline for this modern day retelling asserts. The film is a reboot of both the original 2004 film and its stage counterpart, “Mean Girls the Musical (2016)”.
For those of you who don’t know, “Mean Girls” (2004) is a film about Cady Heron, a teen girl moving from Kenya to Illinois. In this transition, she goes from homeschooling to public school, which comes with a unique set of challenges. The rest of the movie follows her journey of bonding with new people, then making friends with folks those people hate, and then losing both sets of friends. There’s some details I missed there, but honestly the movie came out in 2004, just go watch it. Onto my review.
“Mean Girls” (2024) was better than I thought it’d be, but then again my expectations were EXTREMELY low . The original “Mean Girls” is considered a modern classic with extremely quotable lines and easily recognizable looks. Trying to recreate that is borderline impossible, but the new rendition does a decent job at recreating the iconic film in the modern day.
A big draw for me to see the film was the cast. Regina George is played by Renee Rapp who played the same role in the Broadway musical. I knew her singing in the film would be phenomenal from her performance on Broadway, and I was not disappointed.
I was also very excited to see Auli’i Cravalho as Janis Sarkisian (Formerly Janis Ian). I also knew she would be a great singer from her role as Moana in “Moana” (2016). I’ve seen her act in other films as well so I was excited to see what depth she would give to the character that many fans felt was missing in the original.
Some stand-out performances also came from Avantika Vandanapu as Karen Shetty (Formerly Karen Smith), Jaquel Spivey as Damian Hubbard, and Bebe Woods as Gretchen Wieners.
In all honesty, although I enjoyed the cast and music, there were definitely some noticeable low points in some performances.
I found most other technical aspects of the film to be mediocre at best. There were moments where the cinematography was fun, but for the most part it aroused questions of, “Why would you frame the scene like that?!” For example, one moment where a character is framed with a front-facing selfie camera while running honestly reminded me of what it looks like when my five year old cousin steals my phone when I’m taking pictures.
Except for Regina, many of the costumes felt like they were trying to adhere to what is considered trendy with a complete disregard for the characterization of the people there were dressing. Janis is a fiber artist, but the things she wears look like mass-produced fast fashion. Gretchin’s whole story arc is emulating Regina to gain her approval, but her looks don’t look anything like Regina.
One thing this movie lacked was the mildly offensive humor of the early 2000s. There are some jokes that I am so happy that they took out, including a line about weight in the song “Meet the Plastics” and the use of a queer slur in reference to Janis, but this did mean some iconic lines were also cut from the film. One that I was sad to not see was, “Oh my god, Danny DeVito, I love your work.” While I did miss the line, many of the other iconic lines just didn’t hit as hard as they did in the original, so in some way I’m also glad they didn’t ruin it.
One thing that really irks me about the film isn’t actually about the film itself, but the marketing. For some reason, the executives over at Paramount Pictures decided to leave any sign that the film was a musical from its trailers. There were some telltale signs to those who enjoy musical theater: dancing in the trailers, over the top costuming choices in promotional material, and of course, the cast stacked with prior musical theater experience. However, these were all things that you needed prior knowledge to notice. Sadly, hiding the genre seems to be a trend in the industry for movie musicals today (see:“Wonka”). It makes sense in some ways, since people generally don’t like musicals. But you know what people like less than musicals? Being lied to.
Overall, “Mean Girls” 2024 is worth watching at least once, especially if you’re a fan of music theater or if you’re like me, a fan of Renee Rapp.
If you do end up liking this movie and have been living under a rock your whole life, I highly recommend watching the original “Mean Girls” (2004).
