Months ago, I saw advertisements about this movie, and noticed that there was a lot of negative feedback. Tiktok trends were making fun of it before it even aired. Many people didn’t even realize that this was a musical, and thought that it was actually going to be a Mean Girls sequel. Rumors quickly spread about it being falsely advertised. There was even a Walmart commercial promoting the film, and personally, I liked the ad because a lot of the original cast was included in it.
Spoiler Alert: Don’t Read Ahead if you Want to Watch
Mean Girls is about a girl named Cady Heron who goes from only ever being homeschooled in Africa to transferring to an American high school. Her first time at a real school, unaware of the teen ecosystem, she becomes friends with two outcasts, yet not knowing that dark past Janice had with them, and they conspire to seek revenge on the leader of the Plastics, Regina George. She faces many hardships and lots of hard choices along the way. Will she fall in line and become a Plastic too?
Cady become frenemies with the three plastics, following along with all their actions. She soon finds out that becoming a plastic is going to be harder than she originally thought. She was the perfect pawn for Janice, allowing to get that inside view on their secrets, and always wearing pink on Wednesday.
All of a sudden, is she going soft on Janice or does she really have it in her to follow through with that plan and not believe their hollow words? Being a part of the plastic team means being teen royalty, getting any guy you want, and having people look up to your every move. Who knows? She might start liking this new life.
Acting Ability
Christopher Briney, who played Aron in the movie didn’t impress me. If it were up to me, I would have casted a better-looking person who is better at acting. The girl however, Avantika Vandanapu, is pretty and funny throughout the movie. They also kindly included some of the OG cast in the movie, which was a nice contribution. Jaquel Spivey, who played Damien, played the part well. I liked him in the movie, and was the person I hated the least, so props to him for winning that award.
Janis was a bit of annoying with all her singing that doesn’t really fit her personality. Honestly, they should have stuck with the authentic Janis and not this “wanna be.” It was nice to see that they kept Ms. Norbury and Mr. Duvall as the teacher and principal, and Lindsay Lohan as the proctor of the Mathletes competition. These cameos added to the scene and brought back a bit of nostalgia. Maybe they also were there to teach the newbies to act a bit.
I felt that Regina was not mean enough at all. In the original movie, she was more rude and bitter to Cady and treating her like she was another girl on the school yard. But in this one, I felt that she was too nice. It’s called “Mean,” Girls after all, the only thing that was mean was the way I fell for the trailers to watch this movie.
Entertaining, but Not for the Right Reasons
First off, did many people want a new Mean Girls movie? NO. To mess with this beloved classic, well loved by many, was not the smartest move. At least if they wanted to make a remake, it should have been good and not some budget production. Even though it was a huge challenge to be as memorable as the original, this movie falls way below average. It was so ridiculous and horribly done, that at times, it was laughable. I would never willingly watch this movie again. I feel like they took an amazing movie, Mean Girls, and recreated a second to represent walking through the pits of….you know where.
Filming Mishap– Oops!
One section in the film, when the actress that plays “Cady” was walking through the hallway singing about Aaron, the camera angle really messed up my day! It was not flattering whatsoever, and it made her look like a monster from Monsters Inc. Why did she sign off on this? Maybe they it was for a high paycheck. Frequently, the filming while walking through the hallways, made her look like she was on FaceTime. There’s no way they put all that work into that hair and makeup for her to look like me when I’m on a call with my mom.
Music and Choreography
I normally love musicals, but this movie was just not it for me. Why is it a musical? Mean Girls should have never been ruined. The songs are terrible, and the lyrics are worse than the dancing, and the angles- don’t even get me started. I can’t even stand the TikToks that come on my feed.
Even though I like how they tried to incorporate the “crawling-on-the-floor-like animals,” in the original movie into the dance choreography, the way they did it made it look so un-natural.
The wardrobe was below average, with the cheap looking outfits that someone needs to talk about. The pink vest Cady wore on Wednesday was not cute- since when is Shein the go to for teen royalty?
The lyrics were truly the worst:
“So thank you, math, for being there to bring me joy and thank you, math ’cause now you brought me this cute boy!”
“My name is Regina George And I am a massive deal.”
“I’m smart with math, but stupid with love.”
The person who came up with these lyrics is definitely going to get fired, because there’s no way of coming back from that.
Overall Rating
The movie as a whole was not very entertaining. I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie, but I’m grateful that they didn’t cut every good part out. Even though they, unfortunately, cut out the lines Regina says before she gets hit by the bus: “Well, you know what everyone says about you, that you’re a homeschooled jungle freak who’s a less hot version of me. So, you can take that fake apology and shove it right up you hairy ahh–” Now that would have been a great scene to incorporate! Maybe it would have been so good that it could have actually saved the movie.
Producers, I have a bone to pick with you, so I award you a solid 2 out of 5 on this movie. Womp, womp.
