Mean Girls started off as a movie in 2004 with Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams. In 2018, Mean Girls hit Broadway as a musical with Erika Henningsen and Taylor Louderman. On January 12, 2024, the musical version was released as a movie with Angourie Rice and Reneé Rapp. I have seen all three versions so let’s talk about the newest one.
Homeschooled Cady Heron (Rice) and her mother (Jenna Fischer) have moved from Kenya to Illinois so Cady can attend high school. At North Shore High school, Cady realizes that she does not have the necessary social skills to survive. She meets Janis (Auliʻi Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey) who introduce her to the various cliques, including The Plastics: Karen (Avantika), Gretchen (Bebe Wood), and Regina (Rapp). Regina decides to take the new girl under her wing, making Cady understand just how mean girls can be to each other. Janis convinces Cady to get revenge on Regina, which causes all sorts of chaos in the halls of the school.
I was already in my late 20s with a 2-year old daughter when the original Mean Girls movie came out. So while I was never the intended audience for the movie, I did enjoy it. Then in 2019, we saw the Broadway musical with most of the original cast. Let’s just say I’m very familiar with all of the various versions of the story. The 2024 movie made a lot of changes to the musical. Unfortunately, not all of the changes were very good.
First, they cut a LOT of songs. Including reprises, fourteen songs were cut for the movie. I would say fifteen were cut since “Meet The Plastics” only includes Regina’s part of the song and cuts both Karen and Gretchen’s parts. They also added a new song for Cady “What Ifs.” This completely replaces “It Roars,” which I think is the better song. (The second new song, “Not My Fault” by Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion, is only used during the credits so I’m not counting it.) I get that these songs were cut for time (the musical is 2 1/2 hours long, the movie version is just under 2 hours) but some of these songs would have made the movie so much better.
Second, a lot of the songs that they had were very flat. The movie felt like it was entirely focused on Rapp’s singing until about halfway through when they realized that Cravalho is also a powerful singer. All of Rice’s songs had zero emotion or personality. Songs that should have been filled with emotion were just flat.
Finally…I’m not sure how to explain this. The movie just felt off. Some of the costuming was weird, the usage of real life influencers in the social media montages took me out of the movie, and of all of the possible makeup/beauty brands they could have partnered with, they chose e.l.f. cosmetics? Regina literally references Louboutin shoes but she uses makeup you can buy at Target? I don’t buy it.
There were good things about the movie - even three years later, Rapp is still amazing as Regina; Spivey’s Damian made me laugh out loud; Cravalho’s version of “I’d Rather Be Me” put the biggest smile on my face; and all of the dancers absolutely ate every scene they were in. (Shout out to Kyle Hanagami’s choreography!) I just wish that they didn’t scrimp on the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, this was the first feature length movie for the directors, Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., and it shows. I would love to say that this is a good replacement for the Broadway musical but it’s not. If you get a chance to see a live performance of the musical, please go see it. It deserved so much better than this.
Rating: C