On Jan. 12, a musical reboot of the 2004 film “Mean Girls” took to theater screens across the country. Before we get into the modern adaptation of the movie, let’s talk about the original.
When the first “Mean Girls” was released in 2004, it was a big hit.
The movie affected pop culture in ways few films have before, and its impact still lives on a whopping 20 years later. In fact, in 2013, the official Instagram account of The White House posted a photo with the caption, “Bo, stop trying to make fetch happen,” a callback to the famous line by Gretchen Wieners. In 2018, the movie’s characters took to the Broadway stage in a musical adaptation. The musical also garnered quite the audience and was also pretty popular, going on tour after Covid.
Now this 2024 adaption was not just an adaptation of the original movie, it was also an adaptation of the musical. However, it was not advertised that way. It was reported that they wanted the fact that the movie is a musical to be a surprise.
However, many fans already knew it was a musical so it wasn’t much of a surprise. A big giveaway was that Renee Rapp, who played Regina George on Broadway, was also Regina in this movie.
This movie was full of easter eggs referencing the original movie. Lindsay Lohan, who played Cady – the main character – in the original movie, even made a cameo at the end of the film.
Ashley Park, who played Gretchen on the Broadway musical, was the French teacher in the movie. Tina Fey also played Ms. Norbury in this movie like she did in the original. Plus, there was Tim Meadows who played Principal Duvall in both movies.
Now, let’s talk about the new cast. As mentioned, Renee Rapp played Regina George in the new movie. It is no surprise that she did an amazing job with both her singing and acting. Playing a popular character is hard but it felt like Renee really made this character her own different version. Watching her sing “World Burn” gave me the chills in this movie.
Avantika Vandanapu played Karen. Karen is an iconic character and Avantika nailed the role. Her comedic timing was amazing and I could not stop laughing at her one-liners; she was honestly the funniest character in the film.
Angourie Rice played Cady Heron and she did really well. However, she made Cady seem too innocent throughout the movie while Lindsay’s Cady felt a bit meaner, which was the point of the movie since it is called “Mean Girls.”
The songs of this movie were good but a bit disappointing at the same time due to changes in the songs. In the Broadway version, the song “Meet the Plastics” was used to introduce the three most popular girls in school who were known to be “The Plastics.” Each member of the plastics had a verse that introduced their personality to the audience. However, in the movie, the song was narrowed down to one verse.
The only person the audience got an introduction to was Regina George. Karen and Gretchen’s verses were both cut off in song which was really disappointing to see since Karen has the funniest verse in the song.
Another song that was changed was “Stupid with Love.” In the Broadway musical, Aaron sings a part of this song. However, Christopher Briney, who played Aaron Samuels, did not even sing at all in the movie.
Was this movie a good or bad adaptation of the original? I would say that it is a good adaptation.
It was not as good as the original film but it was still a really fun movie that I personally enjoyed.
The acting was amazing and the songs were good as well. I would rate this movie a seven out of ten. Overall, the movie was really funny and it was very entertaining.