Mean Girls (2024) Review

In 2004 Mean Girls became a seminal film. It was an edgy teen comedy that was a satire of high school culture, and female relationships and made many of the people involved stars. 20 years later the world of Mean Girls gets revisited with the cinematic adaptation of the Broadway musical.

Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is a homeschooled teenager who must attend high school after her mother (Jenna Fischer) takes a job at Northwestern University. At North Shore High School, Cady befriends two arty outsiders, Janis ‘Im’ike (Auli’i Cravalho) and Duncan Hubbard (Jaquel Spivey) but she becomes enamoured by Regina George (Reneé Rapp), the Queen Bee of the school. Cady must navigate the world of school cliques, romantic rivalries, and become a part of Janis’ revenge plot against Regina.

The original Mean Girls is beloved by many. It’s a film that has memorable characters, quotes, and scenes. This was the film that coined the phrase ‘on Wednesdays we wear pink’ and the term ‘fetch’ and gave the world the sexy “Jingle Bells Rocks” dance. It does lead to the question, why did a new version of Mean Girls need to be made? It was a question the 2024 version couldn’t answer.

Mean Girls (2024) tells the same story as the original film. The differences that were made were minor, like Janis actually being a lesbian, and Cady being raised by a single parent. These changes were superficial. There was an attempt to bring in the role of social media since that’s one of the biggest changes in society since the release of the original film, but it didn’t add much to this version of the story. The sense of repetition was added because Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprised their roles from the original film. Avantika’s performance as Karen was close to how Amanda Seyfried played the character. To be fair, Karen was a great character and Avantika was often a scene-stealer.

The 2024 film did cut some of the material that wouldn’t be acceptable today. There was no racial humour and the affair between the coach and one of the students was cut. Yet, the musical version lacked the edge that made the 2004 film so biting. An example of this was in the original film Regina called a rival’s parent and pretended to be Planned Parenthood. It was darkly funny and had a serious plan since it showed girls were willing to turn on each other instead of finding real solutions.

Mean Girls (2024) was longer than the original film, but it ended up feeling like the abridged version of the same story. The new film cut a number of the songs to shorten the runtime and reduce major plot points. It was noticeable when Cady explored Regina’s affair, and Cady and Janis’ attempts to humiliate Regina.

Mean Girls (2024) made references to the original. They were made for fans of the 2004 film, but it added to a sense of frustration.

The musical did have a great cast. Angourie Rice has impressed since her breakout role in The Nice Guys and she impressed as the good girl who gets corrupted by high school. Reneé Rapp reprised her role from the stage show and she brought a bit of humanity to the role, like when her insecurities were on display like her running a treadmill due to her weight gain. The most impressive member of the cast was Auli’i Cravalho. Cravalho was best known for starring in Moana and it was interesting to see her in a live-action role. Her vocal ability was never in doubt and she brought life to the numbers, especially since Barrett Wilbert Weed did a great job in the Broadway version. Cravalho did bring some bitterness and anger to the role.

Mean Girls (2024) served as the feature film debut for the directional debut of Samantha Jayne and Arthuro Perez Jr. They brought energy to the musical numbers. The opening number did a great job transitioning from a garage to the plains of Kenya, to a suburban high school. “Revenge Party” has energy and colour as Janis convinces Cady to strike against Regina, whilst “I’d Rather Be Me” has a lot of movement as the camera follows Janis around the school.

Mean Girls (2024) was made to be a Paramount+ exclusive but it got upgraded to a cinematic release because it did well at test screenings. This film was made on a more modest budget of $36 million and hopefully Hollywood can learn that not every film needs to be a big-budget tentpole.

Mean Girls (2024) was a remake that struggled to justify its existence. It was nowhere near as insightful or biting as the original, leading to Mean Girls (2024) being an average teen musical.