By Ava Watson
Photo by Abby Gotzkowsky
The Mean Girls musical of 2024 didn’t even come close to the iconic Mean Girls movie of 2004. I went to see the new Mean Girls movie a couple of weeks ago with three friends, and we were all very disappointed.
No sooner had we watched the trailer than we had an issue with the movie–we weren’t expecting a musical from watching the trailer, which gives zero indication of the movie as such. The whole point of a movie trailer is to give an accurate preview of what the movie is about and its genre and market audience.
The next issue that was immediately apparent was that the acting was horrendous. It felt like the actors were reading directly from the script without putting in any effort into actually portraying their characters. One of the very few exceptions is that Jaquel Spivey, the actor who played Damian, did a great job and really embodied his character.
In my opinion, in general, I thought that production could have done a much better job with casting. Many of the characters didn’t fit their roles. I also thought that none of the scenes matched the same energy as the original. Regina George was meant to be a master manipulator, and a scene that really shows this was when Regina was screaming and writing in the burn book when she found out about the protein bars that Cady had been giving her. In the original movie, this scene was meant to show her ability to think quickly and manipulate on the spot, but in the new movie they completely took away all of the drama and power from the scene by having the actress write slowly and take her time, making it look like no big deal.
In addition, I thought that a lot of the songs in general were completely unnecessary, and every time a musical number came on, I could hear the people in the theater sigh because it was that excessive. “That was not fetch,” my viewing partner Willow Junior Sophia DeFraites said.
One redeeming point is that Renee, the actress who played Regina, had a great voice and made some of the musical numbers bearable to watch.
Lastly, the movie as a whole felt very cheaply made and rushed through. The wardrobe looked as though all the clothes had been ordered from Shein, which was very disappointing, as the original movie put a lot of emphasis on the outfits that the plastics would wear. It was also all of the sets in general that made the movie feel cheap. “It looks like you could buy Regina’s house off of a TikTok shop,” Willow Junior Allie Teague said.
Knowing that the budget for this movie was 36 million dollars made this more disappointing and surprising. Overall, the Mean Girls movie 2024 was not what I was expecting and had some definite flaws, but I have heard some mixed reviews from other people, so if you can tolerate the musical numbers, it may be worth watching it and deciding for yourself.
