It’s been twenty years, and fetch still isn’t going to happen. On January 12, audiences were welcomed back to North Shore High for the musical remake of Mean Girls, the iconic 2004 film written by Tina Fey. Just like in the original, the 2024 movie follows Cady Heron, a transfer student from Africa, as she navigates her first high school. With classic 2000’s actors like Lindsey Lohan and Rachael McAdams, the 2004 original has become a hit and famous comedy about the lives of teenage girls. It was so beloved and a staple of pop culture that in 2018, a musical rendition of Mean Girls opened on Broadway with moderate acclaim. With two successful productions of the franchise, the legacy of Regina George would last for a long time. So why risk a failure with continuation? Well, Fey and the team decided to go all in, and the audience received a modern reboot of Mean Girls, complete with usage of social media, new actors, and above all, it’s a musical.
The 2024 movie attempts to hold onto each past success that the Mean Girls franchise has had, using hit numbers from the musical while still trying to make it funny and relatable for today’s teen audience. However, it falls short. Fans of the musical were annoyed to see that the movie had cut many hit songs, like “Stop,” “It Roars,” and “Fearless,” while writing new songs for the actors that sounded out of place. Although movie-musicals can be awkward, recent hits like La La Land (2016) have shown that it is possible to recreate a musical and still write an entertaining story. The musical numbers fell short, to theater and non-theater enjoyers alike.
On top of this, the storyline was dulled from the original. Setting the movie in the present day means a lot of updates in the teenage world, specifically the usage of social media like Instagram and Tiktok. The writers attempted to update the storyline, including new aspects like Regina George going viral online and a musical number that is filmed almost entirely in a Tiktok format. While it is clear what the movie is trying to do, it just doesn’t read well on the screen. It looks cheap and tacky. Another issue is that the new movie lacks all of the snarky dialogue that was loved in the original movie. The executives removed many of the jokes about weight and promiscuity that were in the 2004 movie. This is the main problem of the remake. Audiences loved the original for the true stories it told about high school, bullies, and the struggles of being a teenage girl. These jokes and problems at their core are no different today, yet the 2024 movie does not tell these stories at all. Kalina Rauer ’26, who enjoyed both the original and Broadway adaptation, said that “the changes made felt cheap and overall lessened the appeal of the movie.” The main plot is almost identical to the original, but the writing is disappointing.
With a remake, there is a whole new roster of actors to play the iconic parts of the original. The important thing when casting for the new Mean Girls was to hire actors who could not only play these characters well but also hit the high notes in their solos. The clear star of the new movie was singer Renee Rapp, who played Regina George. Rapp had played Regina in one of the Broadway productions of Mean Girls, and was miles above the rest of the cast theatrically. “I thought the original was better, but Renee Rapp was good,” commented Elliott Boldin ’27. “She was my personal favorite character and shone through as an incredible singer and actor.” Other notable names included Angourie Rice as Cady Heron (Betty in Spiderman: Homecoming), Auliʻi Cravalho as Janis Ian (Moana in Disney’s Moana), and Christopher Briney as Aaron Samuels (Conrad in The Summer I Turned Pretty). While the cast was fairly solid, it in no way compared to the original. Unfortunately, this made the movie seem that much more of a disappointment.
Despite the negativity surrounding the new Mean Girls, it has received fairly good reviews, with a seventy percent Rotten Tomatoes rating. Many critics seem to think that the movie does a good job of modernizing teenage girls ,but do not really understand the modern-day high school experience. The remake does not capture the essence of the original movie. Whether due to the musical aspect, the weird take on modernization, or simply because it is a remake of a classic, this movie was unsuccessful. So it is safe to say that you should enjoy the 2004 version, listen to the original cast recording of the musical, and try not to think about the new, lacking third addition to the Mean Girls world.
