Skip to content
Mean Girls is a musical remake of a story about being popular and hot, originally placing Lindsay Lohan in the lead role of 16-year-old Cady Heron, who goes from being home-schooled in Africa to having to deal with high-school life in the US.
Little has changed this time round, in terms of plot, such as the fact that Cady’s (Angourie Rice – Spider-Man: No Way Home More Fun Stuff Version) point of origin is narrowed down as Kenya, Eastern Africa. Still, once in the US, she gets on best with dweebs like Janis (Auli’i Cravalho – The Power) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), whilst somehow feeling the need to ingratiate herself with the “plastics”, in the form of thicc ‘Apex Predator’ Regina George (Reneé Rapp), Karen Shetty (Avantika – yes, another Hollywood individual who insists on only being known as one word) and Gretchen Wieners (Bebe Wood) – even though when I saw the equivalent lads in my school who were like that, I would happily avoid them, because I can’t be dealing with self-obsessed idiots.
That said, Cady is rather drawn towards Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney) who sits in front of her, even though he happens to be Regina’s ex – and she wants him back, albeit most likely because she doesn’t want anyone else to have him, especially the new girl.
While this is largely the same script, from a film which scored $130m from a mere $18m budget, and has gained a following in the intervening 20 years, the original is a film I’ve seen just the once, and that was a few months back when it was on late night TV. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t something I had to have in my life to watch over and over, like the cult following it has developed.
My feelings for this version are the same. It’s very enjoyable for its running time, including some great one-liners, such as questioning the pronounciation of the heroine’s first name, “Cady, like kd lang?”
Plus, when Regins tells ditzy Karen, “I’ll do your eyebrows”, the response comes “Can I still have two?“; and upon revealing she was home-schooled – Tina Fey (A Haunting In Venice), reprising her role of Ms Norbury from the original film, “That’s a fun way to take jobs from our union(!)”
BTW, for comparison re: budgets, this new one is similarly small budget at $36m, and hhas already taken $66m in its opening weekend alone! In fact, I could tell early on that this will be a massive hit, and they’ll probably release a singalong version at Christmas.
There is one key element that was noticeable during the new film, in that whenever certain events happen, they’re picked up on social media (which wasn’t around in 2004) and blogged about by influences such as Megan Thee Stallion, who I understand is kind of a big deal, but I have no idea who she is because I am 450 years old.
However, the main difference between 2004 and 2024 is that this Mean Girls has songs! Yes, based on the stage musical – put together by Ms Fey along with everything involved in the script – there’s quite a few of them although, quite frankly, I thought we’d get more, and that it would be mostly songs – which I understood that from the start, but it did just feel like there wasn’t as many as I was expecting. However, where there are some great ones in the film, I did prefer the ones where people are walking around the locations, just breaking into song. I’m sure that’s what happens when I walk around, anyway.
On a technical note, if you can see this film on a 1.85:1 screen – as I ended up doing – all the better, since quite often when there’s song-and-dance numbers, it puts on a 2.39:1 widescreen effect. This is in addition to an opening mobile phone-style ratio number.
Finally, while there’s a post-credits scene (and despite it being a busy screening, as usual, I was the only one left to see it!) which you can learn about in the video below, there’s also another element, which was not hidden from the cast, but a certain something that you may want to keep as a surprise until you watch the film…
Mean Girls is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release date TBA.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 112 minutes
Release date: January 19th 2024
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (ARRIRAW (4.6K))
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 7/10
Directors: Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr
Producers: Erin David, Tina Fey, Micah Frank, Sonia Friedman, Eric Gurian, Caroline Maroney, Lorne Michaels, Jeff Richmond, Christine Schwarzman, Marisa Sechrest
Screenplay/Stage Musical: Tina Fey
Music: Jeff Richmond
Cast:
Cady Heron: Angourie Rice
Regina George: Reneé Rapp
Janis ‘Imi’ike: Auli’i Cravalho
Damian Hubbard: Jaquel Spivey
Karen Shetty: Avantika
Gretchen Wieners: Bebe Wood
Aaron Samuels: Christopher Briney
Ms. Heron: Jenna Fischer
Mrs. George: Busy Philipps
Ms. Norbury: Tina Fey
Mr. Duvall: Tim Meadows
Coach Carr: Jon Hamm
Madame Park: Ashley Park
Mr. Rapp: Connor Ratliff
Kevin Ganatra: Mahi Alam
Caroline Krafft: Allison Winn
Herself: Megan Thee Stallion
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.