The biggest problem with this movie of the Broadway show, based on the 2004 classic teen comedy that made Lindsay Lohan a household name, is just how unnecessary it feels.
It’s a plodding musical that repeats too much from the beloved original and does too little to make its own mark. It’s written by Tina Fey, who co-wrote the original – which was based on the self-help book Queen Bees and Wannabees – and here, Fey returns to North Shore High School as teacher, Ms Norbury.
The Lohan baton has been passed to cute-but-insipid Aussie 23-year-old Angourie Rice. Again, wholesome nice girl Cady Heron has transferred from the wilds of Kenya to high school in America, which she finds just like the African savannah with its hierarchy of teenage savagery.
Cady inexplicably falls in with the “Plastics” – a caricatured trio of bitchy, fake pretty things ruled by the fearsome Regina George (Reneé Rapp, who played the role on Broadway).
But when Regina discovers that Cady has eyes for her ex-boyfriend, Aaron, suddenly the Plastics aren’t the only girls who get mean.
Twenty years ago, Mean Girls helped launch the careers of Lohan, Rachel McAdams (Regina), Amanda Seyfried and Lizzy Caplan. Lohan went on to extraordinary tabloid fame but she did nail Cady’s fragile naivety in a way that Rice does not.
This time, the only kids deserving a career boost from this are the talented narrators, played by Auliʻi Cravalho (Moana) and newcomer Jaquel Spivey.
Otherwise, the skewering of high school stereotypes that seemed clever in 2004 has not aged well in two decades, even with added tunes. One wonders why the youth of today – with their progressive politics, their embrace of all things diverse, their conservative approach to sex and shaming – would be remotely interested in whatever this remake thinks it’s saying. Or, for that matter, singing.
This Mean Girls has gone full jazz hands, and though there is acknowledgement of a contemporary TikTok influence, most of the songs just aren’t very good. One number in which students move like wild animals is am-dram cringey.
As well as Fey’s return, fellow Saturday Night Live alumnus Tim Meadows appears as Principal Duvall. But the script is a rushed, incoherent mess of regurgitated lines that once zinged but now fizzle. Married co-directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr, both on their debut feature after a background in music videos and short films, make zero effort to do anything new or exciting. What was once at least a “high merit” is now a “not achieved”.
Rating out of 5: ★★
Mean Girls, directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr, is in cinemas now.
