As a young adult, there are many movies that I wish I could watch for the first time again and experience every emotion I felt watching it.
Seeing the new version of the “Mean Girls” movie in theaters around a week ago did absolutely that for me.
The movie was released in theaters on Jan. 12 and it is based on a Broadway musical version of the original “Mean Girls” movie, according to an article by The New York Times.
Prior to watching the movie, I didn’t do any research and had no idea the movie was going to be a musical.
Whenever I hear about an original movie being reimagined, I immediately cringe at the idea because I don’t think anything is better than the original.
With that being said, I already had a bad taste in my mouth before I even watched the movie because I had high expectations.
If any producer takes on “Mean Girls” in this day and age, they better do a good job in doing so.
The movie confused me. There were countless moments where I would get invested into the plot and then the characters would break out and start singing and I would just immediately lose interest.
With that being said, the movie title was super misleading because it’s titled “Mean Girls,” not Mean Girls: the Musical.
If I wanted to watch a musical, I’d watch “High School Musical.”
I thought some of the songs were catchy, like “Stupid with Love” and “Someone Gets Hurt,” because the delivery was just so good in their musical performances.
However, the movie itself would’ve been just fine without all the singing because the musicals made it repetitive and annoying.
The movie immediately starts with Cady Heron, played by Angourie Rice, one of the main characters, in Kenya and singing as she packs her bags to move to the United States and be a “normal girl” who goes to high school.
All hating aside, I have to applaud the movie’s producers for recreating one of my childhood classics and turning it into something appealing to both the younger and older audiences.
The clever jokes and play on today’s trends had me watching it as if I hadn’t seen the original and rewatched it a dozen times.
I also thought certain revamps in the movie were clever, such as incorporating TikTok as a means of communication other than texting alone, Gretchen, played by Bebe Wood, making Cady a Spotify playlist to make her more “cultured” and using modern slang, such as saying “for sure” or “thank you, next.”
I especially liked how there were more people of color playing in the movie. All the actors in the original were majority white so it was nice to see an African-American Damien, played by Jaquel Spivey, and Indian Karen, played by Avantika Vandanapu, in the 2024 revival.
Speaking of actors, I still can’t get over how “The Summer I Turned Pretty’s” Conrad Fisher, played by Christopher Briney, portrayed Aaron Samuels.
When I tell you my jaw dropped when he first appeared — I’m serious. I was crushing on him throughout the whole movie.
They definitely upgraded on the Aaron Samuels casting of the movie, although from a plot perspective it didn’t make sense when Regina and Aaron kissed at the party.
In the previous movie, they kissed as a means to get Cady to leave Aaron alone because Regina didn’t want Cady and Aaron to end up in a relationship together.
In the movie I saw last Monday, Regina started singing “Someone Gets Hurt” and boom, they kissed. The plot was lacking there.
I wasn’t a big fan either of the actress they used to replace Rachel McAdams, the original Regina George.
Rachel McAdams is a legend because of her range from being the ultimate mean girl to turning into a completely different persona as a lover girl in “The Notebook”.
I didn’t think Rapp was able to do Regina George justice, but hey, the outfits were cute.
Looking back, I think the producers did a good job of not turning the original version into something completely different. They still kept the original “Mean Girls” alive.
Mostly everyone knows the saying: “On Wednesdays, we wear pink” and that alone shows how much of a chokehold the original movie had on people when it was released.
After watching the movie, I was glad they revamped it because now younger generations can get cultured.
Now, if I talk to any teenager about “Mean Girls” they better know what I’m talking about.
