Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr.’s new movie musical Mean Girls is technically a direct screen adaptation of a 2018 Broadway production of Mark Waters’ 2004 hit comedy of the same name. But ignoring some minor changes, it pretty much follows the same structure as the initial movie. 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).
Busy Philipps plays Regina’s mom, while Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their respective 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. 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; and while there’s nothing visually wrong with Mean Girls ’24 (I actually really liked how the party scenes were shot/directed], we’re mainly just left asking … why?
All of the funny jokes are brought over from the first film, the tunes are decent, but nothing particularly special. Rapp looks the part of Regina, but her wardrobe is puzzling (would the queen bee on campus really wear cargo pants?)
My biggest nitpick 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 having both Cady and Regina as blondes feels a bit derivative.
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 Randal
Kleiser’s Grease (1978) or Kenny Ortega’s High School Musical (2006) again.