Mean Girls(2024) is a film which is loudly ashamed of itself. It is self referential and cheeky - it cuts itself off to remind you that you're watching a movie MUSICAL, isn't that silly? Aren't movie musicals SILLY? Why are these teens SINGING? Isn't that RANDOM? The backing tracks have been gutted and sound empty, while the actors at some times sound like they would have benefited from a second or third take, such as Cady's verse in Revenge Party, or look completely dubbed, like Regina in Someone Gets Hurt. The choreography in many songs is lacking and nonsensical. I'd Rather Be Me is filmed like a made-for-YouTube music video, not like a scene in a movie. Stupid With Love sounds like it was sung by someone who had never heard the song before but was given the lyrics and a generic royalty free backing to sing over, and finishes with choreography which was made to be easily cropped to a vertical format and posted on TikTok. It is generic and boring and BAD. Cady sings the line "I am filled with calcu-lust" like she's serenading a slug she found on the sidewalk. After being shot in the behind with a horse tranquilizer.
The vertical angle worked...somewhat, for Sexy. It was a clever choice to frame the song as something Karen was shooting for her Snapchat, but it again suffers from a gutted backing, poor choreo, and cluttered visuals when the screen is filled with poorly framed, shot, choreographed, and edited clips of other actors performing for their smartphones, which later devolved into, again, something that is visually more like a music video than a scene from a movie. Avantika is a talented vocalist, she did not need to be autotuned!!! Let her sing!!
Damien's solo song Stop was cut, which is the reason I am going with for him being given Cady's wild-themed lines in Apex Predator. You are reading that correctly - the song in which Cady compares highschool to the animal food chain she knows in Kenya was instead given to Damien, who has no reason to be singing lines like "they scatter like mice from a jungle cat". His fling with The Beast from Stop is hinted at earlier, just before Meet The Plastics, but is otherwise dropped.
This is an issue presented throughout the film. In its haste to point and laugh at itself at every juncture while shoving in orignal songs in a desperate attempt at winning Best Original Song, character moments are dropped. Karen does not get to report the weather. Janis is not manipulative. We do not know who Cady Herron is, aside from that she is obsessed with Aaron, and yet her obsession is sedated, so she is not even allowed that. What Ifs replaces It Roars, a song which is better and does more to introduce Cady's character, which is to say, Whats Ifs does nothing at all. The hints of jungle bounce from Cautionary Tale, It Roars, Stupid With Love, Apex Predator, and More Is Better have been erased, leaving behind clean pop idol Cady Herron who we know nothing about. If you are going to take out all hints of her childhood, you should at least replace them with something! Her leitmotif is meant to indicate when we are seeing/hearing Cady Herron for who she is, getting a glimpse at her true self before she covers it back up in concealer and glitter. Mean Girls(2024) leaves Cady as glitter all the way down.
(Note: In several areas of the movie, lyrics are changed for reasons I can't discern. A verse of Stupid With Love, which references Cady's first crush on a Kenyan boy, is completely cut, and in Sexy the line "Sexy Elanor Roosevelt or Sexy Rosa Parks" Is changed to "Sexy Elanor Roosevelt or Sexy Joan of Ark". In both cases, the change was jarring. A more understandable change, but one I still dislike, is that from calling Janis a Space Dyke to calling her a Pyro Les.)
Scenes where the chaos of the school hallways are portrayed using animal-like choreography are cute and clever(Meet The Plastics), and the representations of the soul-sucking nature of social media is represented well by filling the screen with vertical facecams and overlaying voiceovers. What's Wrong With Me was exactly what I expected, and that isn't an insult! It is the only moment in the film in which the snarky "LOL what is happening??" angle works for it, as Gretchen Weiners vents her troubles to Cady, who has no idea how to handle it. Revenge Party was a pale imitation of its musical counterpart, but the replacement of the soundtrack with a marching band version paired with whispered vocals was lovely in the context of the scene.
Megan Thee Stallion killed it.
2/10. This movie was 112 minutes long, and a complete waste of nearly two hours. It is the worst of both worlds. If you want to listen to the musical, watch the musical. If you want to watch the movie, watch the 2004 version.
