New student Cady Heron gets welcomed into the top of the social food chain by an elite group of popular girls called the Plastics, ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George. However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina's ex-boyfriend, she soon finds herself caught in their crosshairs.
Director: Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr.
Cast: Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auliʻi Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, Avantika, Bebe Wood, Christopher Briney, Jenna Fischer, Busy Philipps, Tina Fey, Tim Meadows
Release Date: January 12, 2024
Genre: Comedy, Musical
Rated PG-13 for sexual material, strong language, and teen drinking.
Runtime: 1h 52m
Mean Girls, The film adaptation of the Broadway musical of the original film, is a strange concoction of musical numbers paired with a slavish devotion to the original material that never lets it find its own footing. Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. directorial debut is solid but noticeably listless for large portions of time, particularly when they are recreating scenes verbatim from the original film. The musical numbers fare far better, injecting a solid sense of energy into the film with well choregraphed sequences that are fun even if they aren't terribly memorable except for "World Burn" and "I'd Rather Be Me" being the best of the bunch. The main cast lead by Angourie Rice are all solid with a few stand outs leaving a lasting impression. Rice is adequately mousy to start before she starts her rise through the Plastics. Reneé Rapp, who played the role on Broadway, brings a different sort of energy to Regina than Rachel McAdams did in the original role which makes it one of the more interesting performances since it brings something new to the production. Avantika and Bebe Wood take over the Karen Shetty, who's even dumber than Karen Smith in the original which is a strange choice, and Gretchen Wieners roles and fare worse than Rapp. Their performances are little more than hollow impressions of the originals with Wood's even emulating Lacey Chabert's vocal inflections multiple times. Auliʻi Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey take over the Janis and Damian with both doing strong work even if Cravalho doesn't quiet have the edge that Lizzy Caplan brought to the role while Spivey steals every scene he's in. Tina Fey and Tim Meadows return from the original film but both are surprisingly flat through with both just going through the motions which only reminds you of the fact that there's already a pretty solid version of the film elsewhere. Most properties that go from screen to stage and back do their best to find their own voice while capturing the spirit, Hairspray comes to mind, but Mean Girls does the exact opposite which doesn't do this version any favors.
C
