Movie Review: ‘Mean Girls’ Is Technically Perfect, But Leaves You Asking ‘Why?’

Seeing Samantha Jayne & Arturo Perez Jr.’s movie musical Mean Girls made me not only appreciate Mark Waters’ original teen comedy of the same name 20 years ago, but also appreciate popular high school musicals like Randal Kleiser’s Grease (1978) and Kenny Ortega’s High School Musical (2006).

The new film is technically a direct screen adaptation of a 2018 Broadway production of Mean Girls. But ignoring some minor changes, it pretty much follows the same structure as the 2004 hit comedy. Remember Regina George? Ms. Norbury? Kevin G? Glen Coco? Well, they’re all back, and they’re using TikTok instead of MySpace now.

As fans remember, Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is a sweet, naïve girl who goes from being homeschooled internationally in Kenya to the Illinois suburbs for public high school when her mom (Jenna Fischer) is transferred for a new job position. Almost instantly she dodges being a potential outcast by befriending both Janis ‘Imi’ike (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian Hubbard (Jacquel Spivey), as well as The Plastics: Regina George (Reneé Rapp), Gretchen Wieners (Bebe Wood) and Karen Shetty (Avantika Vandanapu).

Christopher Briney co-stars as Cady’s crush and Regina’s ex Aaron Samuels, Jon Hamm appears as Coach Carr, Busy Philipps plays Regina’s mom, while Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their roles of math teacher Ms. Norbury and Principal Duvall from the original Mean Girls. Fey pens the script once again and Rapp returns to play Regina after portraying the character on Broadway.

This time, there’s more room for the musical numbers and acknowledging society progressing in the past couple decades. The songs give the creators excuses to omit some of the more famous, racy comebacks from the first time around (“Your mother’s chest hair!” “If you’re from Africa, why are you white?” “Boo, you whore!” etc.). Janis goes from being made fun of for looking like a stereotypical lesbian to being a legitimate lesbian and, for some reason, Norbury and Duvall are a couple in this interpretation.

Rice is adorable and has always been one of the more talented actors of her peer group. But unfortunately, her vocal talent is limited to spoken word, and she doesn’t have much range for Cady’s songs. The other actresses are fine with the music, especially Cravalho and Rapp.

While there’s nothing visually wrong with Mean Girls ’24 — I really liked how the party scenes were shot and directed — but we’re mainly just left asking…why? All of the funny jokes are brought over from the first film, and the tunes are decent, but there’s nothing particularly special.

Rapp looks the part of Regina, but her wardrobe is puzzling — would the queen bee on campus really wear cargo pants? Vandanapu’s Karen is unfortunately borderline braindead rather than endearingly ditzy like Amanda Seyfried’s Karen. Wood’s performance as Gretchen is actually pretty good both as an homage and fresh take here, as is Cravalho’s Janis. Fey and Meadows reviving their own roles doesn’t really add anything other than general nostalgia, and Philipps is a bit too animated as Mrs. George, rather than the “cool mom” we remember her as.

My biggest nitpick in this film’s execution is switching Cady from a redhead to a blonde. While Lindsay Lohan was not only one of the most famous gingers of the 2000s, her hair also helped Cady stand out as the story’s protagonist in the traditional sense. With everyone else around her as blonde or brunette, our eyes always go back to her striking red.

But both Cady and Regina as blonde feels a bit derivative. I didn’t actually mind the off-color aspects of the characters being cleaned up in the new Mean Girls, but probably the most baffling change is having both mother characters as single parents. Fathers are virtually non-existent in this universe and not even referenced. This isn’t even politically correct; it’s just strange.

Despite the potential with the new cast and musical twist, Mean Girls: The Musical just leaves us feeling unsatisfied. If you want a fun and clever comedy on teen culture, there’s already the original film. If you want a musical set at a high school, you could just watch Grease or High School Musical again.