The original Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday), Rachel McAdams (Game Night), Amanda Seyfried (Jennifer’s Body), and Lacey Chabert (Not Another Teen Movie), was released almost exactly 20 years ago on April 30, 2004. Inspired by Queen Bees and Wannabes, a self-help book by Rosalind Wiseman, the film was written by SNL star and comedy queen Tina Fey (who also appeared in the movie as a high school calculus teacher named Ms. Norbury). The movie follows sheltered teenager Cady (Lohan) as she transitions from homeschool to high school, learning just how vicious “girl world” can be. With its quotable and laugh-out-loud take on the teenage experience, Mean Girls soon became a favorite among millennials. In 2017, Fey collaborated with lyricist Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde: The Musical) and composer Jeff Richmond (her husband) (Saturday Night Live: 40th Anniversary Special) to adapt the movie into a stage musical. In January of this year, Mean Girls found itself on the big screen once again, this time as a movie adaptation of the musical. After its digital and streaming release in early February, Mean Girls is now getting a 4K UHD release from Paramount — just in time for the 4K edition of the 2004 version. The Mean Girls 2024 disc includes over 30 minutes of bonus content, including three featurettes, an extended scene, a gag reel, a music video, and a sing-along. However, once you place Mean Girls 2024 on your shelf, you might never pick it up again. Unlike its laugh-out-loud predecessor, this version of Mean Girls is not “so fetch.”
If you’re interested in learning about the film in a more spoiler-free context, head over to EoM Contributor Gabe Lapalombella’s initial theatrical release review. Moving forward, we’re going through this film like it’s the Burn Book.
L-R: Directors Arturo Perez Jr. and Samantha Jayne on the set of MEAN GIRLS from Paramount Pictures. Photo Credit: Jojo Whilden/Paramount. ©2023 Paramount Pictures.
Mean Girls 2024 is co-directed by husband-and-wife team Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr.. The screenplay was written (once again) by Tina Fey, who also reprised her role as Ms. Norbury. While Fey changed a few of the details for the remake, the story is the same as the original. Cady Heron, this time played by Angourie Rice (Spider-Man: Homecoming, The Nice Guys), finds herself facing extreme culture shock when she attends public school for the first time. On her first day, she’s immediately noticed by Janice (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damien (Tony-nominee Jaquel Spivey, two social outcasts who take Cady under their wings. However, it isn’t long before Cady also catches the attention of popular girl Regina (Broadway star Reneé Rapp) and her minions, Gretchen (the likable and endearing Bebe Wood, Crushed) and Karen (Avantika, Moxie, who gives a sweet and memorable performance as the “dumb” one in the group). Driven by a long-standing feud with Regina, Janice convinces Cady to infiltrate the popular girl trio, which is known around the school as “the plastics.” Simultaneously repulsed by and in awe of Regina, Cady finds herself trying to imitate the Queen Bee even as she orchestrates her destruction.
L-R: Avantika plays Karen Shetty; Renee Rapp plays Regina George; Bebe Wood plays Gretchen Wieners and Angourie Rice plays Cady Heron in MEAN GIRLS from Paramount Pictures. Photo: Jojo Whilden/Paramount. ©2023 Paramount Pictures.
As an adaptation of a stage musical that’s based on a movie, Mean Girls 2024 finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Not only does it have to live up to the hype of the original movie (more on that later), but it also has to overcome the challenges posed by movie musicals. Stage productions don’t translate directly into the language of cinematography, making it difficult to figure out how to make a movie musical work. For every mildly successful musical from the last 20 years, there are one or two big flops. You’d think that Hollywood would be able to learn a thing or two from those flops — but that’s not the case.
If there’s anything that filmmakers should have learned about movie musicals by now, it’s that they require actors who can actually sing. Reneé Rapp and Auli’i Cravalho have proven their vocal capabilities in past roles, and they both deliver wonderful performances in Mean Girls (Rapp portrayed Regina in Mean Girls on Broadway, and Cravalho was the voice of the title character in Disney’s Moana). While Angourie Rice sang for her role in the HBO original show Mare of Eastown, her vocal performance for Mean Girls is weak and emotionally flat. Rice is the perfect choice for Cady in terms of personality, effortlessly embracing the character’s shyness and cluelessness as the new girl at school. However, her softness and restraint don’t work for the songs. In the stage musical, Cady’s songs give her the chance to express the emotions that she normally holds back, requiring a strong and expressive vocal performance (like in “It Roars,” which was unfortunately cut from the movie and replaced by a lackluster new song called “What Ifs”). Rice’s singing voice lacks the power, technique, and confidence required for the role, and her performance is completely overshadowed by those of her co-stars (which is highly problematic for the movie’s main character).
L-R: Jaquel Spivey as Damian, Angourie Rice as Cady Heron, and Auli’i Cravalho as Janis in MEAN GIRLS from Paramount Pictures. Photo: Jojo Whilden/Paramount. ©2023 Paramount Pictures.
Casting problems aside, Mean Girls does manage to overcome one of the challenges that filmmakers face when bringing a stage production to the screen: incorporating the musical numbers naturally and seamlessly into the plot. Drawing on their experience with music videos, co-directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. reimagine a handful of the songs as fun and stylized vignettes that could stand alone as their own music videos. “Revenge Party” gets a bright and cutesy makeover, adding some sugar-coated flair to the movie. “Sexy” is given the social media treatment and reimagined as a live stream. “Someone Gets Hurt” gets strobe lights in a club-like setting as Reneé Rap absolutely serves with her sultry vocals.
Mean Girls also faced an additional set of challenges as a remake of a successful and well-loved comedy that’s only 20 years old. There’s certainly nothing wrong with adapting a classic movie for a new generation. Movies like Steven Spielburg’s West Side Story (2021) and Bradley Cooper’s adaptation of A Star is Born (2018) are excellent examples of remakes that are just as good as, if not better than, their predecessors. The issue with Mean Girls is that it’s not really an adaptation. It’s more of an awkward imitation of the original. Aside from a few obvious costume/makeup/hairstyle changes, the increased presence of phones, and a general acknowledgment of social media, the remake doesn’t offer anything new or different for Gen Z audiences. Sure, a few of the details have changed, but these changes are so minor and underplayed that they don’t add anything to the story.
L-R: Choreographer Kyle Hanagami and Jaquel Spivey on the set of MEAN GIRLS from Paramount Pictures. Photo Credit: Jojo Whilden/Paramount Pictures. ©2023 Paramount Pictures.
For example, Janice is given anger management problems in the remake, and she’s also openly gay (in the original, Regina spread a rumor that Janice was a lesbian, but this was never confirmed. At the end of the movie, Janice starts dating a male character). However, these details enter the story in dialogue only. Janice, Damien, and Cady talk about Janice’s anger problems and mention her sexuality, but these details don’t change the plot one bit. They don’t change the way that Auli’i Cravalho portrays the character, either. While she’s fantastic in the role, it seems that she’d play it exactly the same way even if Janice were straight and didn’t have anger problems in her past.
Another change from the original is that Cady’s father is not in the picture, but this doesn’t affect the story or introduce any new themes. Ms. Norbury and the school principal, Mr. Duval (played by Tim Meadows, just like in the original) are married in the remake, but this seems to be some kind of private joke between Fey and Meadows rather than a meaningful update to the story. With the same plot, themes, characters, and even a few of the exact same lines as the original, Mean Girls 2024 comes across as a cringy production put on by a bunch of super-fans trying to reenact their favorite movie. It basks in the glory of the original by imitating it to a T and sprinkling in a few references to its cultural impact (like Damien yelling out “Thank you, next” during the talent show scene). However, it doesn’t offer anything new. This leads us to a pretty important question: who is this remake for? Those who grew up on the 2004 version would prefer to watch the original again than to sit through this poor imitation. Broadway fans who loved the musical would much prefer a pro-shot of the stage version than a Frankensteined adaptation with key songs removed and replaced. Knowing that remakes flop more often than not and that movie musicals are difficult to get right, why would anyone think that Mean Girls the movie musical is a good idea?
Renee Rapp as Regina George in MEAN GIRLS from Paramount Pictures. Photo: Jojo Whilden/Paramount. ©2023 Paramount Pictures.
It seems that this adaptation is more for the producers and creative team than for the viewers. By imitating the original so closely, Mean Girls 2024 gives the cast, crew, and producers the chance to relive the best moments of the original and feel like they’re a part of its success, whether they were involved with the original or not. It’s the same thing that high school drama students do when they reenact their favorite SNL skits or movie monologues (just with a Hollywood budget and big names attached). The original Mean Girls was so effective and successful that it makes sense that Tina Fey and everyone else involved would want to recreate and relive that success. However, it takes a lot more than updated costumes, insignificant plot changes, and famous cameos to adapt a classic movie for a new generation. So, much like the story of Cady and the plastics, Mean Girls 2024 is “A Cautionary Tale”: don’t remake a classic unless you’re actually going to add something meaningful.
Mean Girls 4K UHD Bonus Features
- “A New Age of Mean Girl” featurette
- “Song and Dance” featurette
- “The New Plastics” featurette
- Extended Scene: “I’m Having a Small Get-Together at My House”
- Gag Reel
- Music Video: “Not My Fault” with Reneé Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion
- Mean Girls Sing-Along with select songs
Available on digital and streaming on Paramount+ February 20th, 2024.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD April 30th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Paramount Pictures Mean Girls webpage.
Final Score: 3 out of 5.
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Categories: Home Release, Recommendation
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