Maybe it is my brain refusing to accept the passage of time, maybe it is the idea that turning Mean Girls into a musical isn’t a very good idea (although this was already a stage show before being turned into this film), but I was not looking forward to seeing this. The cast of the original movie were all so perfect, the script was consistently brilliant, and it hasn’t exactly faded away into irrelevance since it first hit our screens. Despite my major misgivings, and an extra Spidey-sense tingle when they advertised this without letting people know it was a musical, I tried to stay open-minded. I needn’t have bothered. This is pretty dire.
Angourie Rice plays Cady Heron, a teenage girl who ends up experiencing the ups and downs of high school when she finally gets a chance to attend one after time spent being home-schooled by her mother (Jenna Fischer) while they lived in Africa. Cady struggles, but is soon befriended by Janis (Aul’i’ Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey). After Janis and Damian explain the school cliques to Cady, and then see her unexpectedly befriended by “the plastics”, they come up with a plan to destabilize and break down the established heirarchy. It all relies on taking down the top mean girl, Regina George (Reneé Rapp), and her two main confidants (Karen, played by Avantika, and Gretchen, played by Bebe Wood).
With Tina Fey still in charge of the writing, having adapted Rosalind Wiseman’s book for the original movie and then worked on the musical, it’s impossible to call this a completely laugh-free zone. Unfortunately, the funniest lines are the lines that worked so well in the first film, and were arguably all delivered better by that original cast (with no offence intended to the players here).
Married co-directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. feel locked in by the script, and they aren’t helped by the weak selection of songs, all of which lack energy and creative staging. The production design, wardrobe choices, etc. all work very well, but the script and direction stumble in between each one of the unwelcome songs.
The cast try hard, and it is because of them that I kept willing this to improve before the ending rolled along. Rice is a decent lead, although she does better with the wide-eyed innocence than she does in the third act of the film, and Rapp is such a great Regina that a better film around her would show her to be equal to the Regina played by Rachel McAdams. Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their roles, but somehow don’t do quite as well, Fischer is sweet in her few scenes, and Busy Philipps is fun as the wannabe-cool mom this time around. Sadly, the rest of the cast have to settle for being lesser replacements for their original counterparts. Cravalho, Spivey, Avantika, and Wood are all good. They just aren’t as good as those who made the roles their own the first time around. The same can be said of Christopher Briney (playing the young man who catches Cady’s eye) and Mahi Alam (head of the mathletes).
If you love the original Mean Girls then I don’t imagine you will love this. If you have yet to see it then I don’t imaging you will love this. It is hard to think of who will get the most from it, especially when the original film is just so much better, and isn’t punctuated by unmemorable and unnecessary songs.
3/10
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I never even watched the original "Mean Girls." At least when they did this with "The Producers" there was like 35 years between the original movie and the stage show.
ReplyDeleteAnd "The Producers" was helped by decent songs.
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