![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/image-62.png?resize=746%2C1024&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of all the pop culture institutions to be canceled, ended, or otherwise shut down by the pandemic in 2020, the permanent closure of the \u201cMean Girls\u201d Broadway musical was perhaps the one that disappointed me the most. I\u2019m not sure why it wasn\u2019t brought back post-pandemic \u2013 ticket sales had clearly been healthy enough to keep me from scoring cheap seats during its two-year run \u2013 all I knew was that the show was gone and I had missed all 833 chances to see it live. But then a ray of hope appeared when it was announced that the musical, which itself was based on the 2004 movie, which itself was based on a book, was going to become a movie. I immediately got my hopes up, this movie would be the payoff to six long years of waiting. With my expectations that high, is it any wonder I found the movie disappointing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story follows shy teenager Cady (Angourie Rice) as she navigates her first high school in the United States after moving from Kenya with her mother (Jenna Fischer). She\u2019s a great academic, impressing her math teacher Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey, who played the role in the original film and is the writer of all three versions of the property), but lacking in social graces. Outcasts Janis (Auli\u2019i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey) invite her to be their lunchroom companion, but she can\u2019t help but be drawn to the ultra-popular Plastics clique, led by the domineering Regina George (Renee Rapp).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regina and the Plastics are surprisingly receptive to Cady and invite her to join the group. She isn\u2019t really comfortable around the chic Regina and her friends, busybody Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and vacuous Karen (Avantika), but Janis convinces her that it will be so fun to infiltrate the group and report back on how catty and ridiculous they are. This of course makes Cady and Janis just as catty and ridiculous as the Plastics, but they don\u2019t pick up on it until it\u2019s too late. Meanwhile, Cady develops a crush on Regina\u2019s ex Aaron (Christopher Briney), and when she learns that Plastics rules forbid dating him, she schemes to work around the system, manipulate Aaron into liking her, and usurp Regina\u2019s popularity. In other words, she takes to being a \u201cmean girl\u201d more easily than she thought possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The musical numbers are certainly fun, if not particularly memorable. It\u2019s hard not to get swept up in just how endearingly dramatic these kids are, which the singing and dancing compliment perfectly. I have no problem believing that this movie will create just as many breakout stars as the 2004 film. But seeing them on a cramped set isn\u2019t the same as seeing them on a nice open stage. There are sequences in houses and classrooms that are undeniably impressive and no doubt a lot of hard work went into them, but that\u2019s the problem, it\u2019s hard not to think about how much work went into them. Somehow it\u2019s perfectly believable that these characters would break into song and dance, but I have a hard time believing that they would choose to do this much limb-flailing choreography in such a tight space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think the bigger problem with this version of \u201cMean Girls\u201d is that it may be too soon to remake a movie from 2004, even with the change-up of musical numbers. The original is so fresh in the audience\u2019s mind that they know the progression of the story and in some places can quote the dialogue word-for-word, which includes stepping on some integral punchlines. Tina Fey and Tim Meadows (as the school\u2019s principal) reprise their roles without singing, and it\u2019s less a welcome nostalgia act and more of an unflattering copy. Still, I\u2019d like to see the movie become a hit, partly because I want to reward its infectious energy and partly because I\u2019d like to see it lead to a revival of the Broadway show so I can finally see the musical the way it was intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMean Girls\u201d is rated PG-13 for sexual material, strong language, and teen drinking. Its running time is 112 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of all the pop culture institutions to be canceled, ended, or otherwise shut down by the pandemic in 2020, the permanent closure of the \u201cMean Girls\u201d… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[7283],"class_list":["post-40971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-mean-girls-movie-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40973,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40971\/revisions\/40973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}