The famous and iconic movie that all us early 2000s babies live by has made a comeback 20 years later in the form of a musical/comedy movie. The new ”Mean Girls” film was released on Jan. 12, 2024, and is a musical remake of the original 2004 ”Mean Girls” film.
“Mean Girls” is directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., and written by Tina Fey who also wrote for the original 2004 film. Fey also stars as the iconic Ms. Norbury in both of the movies as well. The gross in the US and Canada is about $66 million and the national gross is $99 million.
The movie stars Renneé Rapp as Regina George, who has gained a following for her role as Regina but is also known for being an American singer and songwriter. Also starring in the lead role of Cady Heron, Angourie Rice who is an Australian actress. Fey and Tim Meadows make an appearance playing the same roles in the first film as Ms. Norbury and Principal Duvall.
The plot in the movie is mostly the same except the opening scenes where Cady and her mom are in Kenya, Africa, and her mom tells her that they are moving back home to the United States. She has been home-schooled her whole life and attends North Shore High School which is a big change from what she is used to.
Cady befriends social outcasts Janis ‘Imi’ike and Damian Hubbard who give her a rundown of the various cliques in the school ending with the plastics, which includes Regina George, Karen Shetty, and Gretchen Weiners. When they mention Regina, she walks into the cafeteria and introduces herself with the song “Meet the Plastics”, and after she invites Cady to sit by them for the rest of the week. Janis uses this opportunity to take down the plastics with Cady as her prop.
Cady becomes very attracted to Aaron Samuels, who’s a senior in her calculus class and just happens to be Regina’s ex-boyfriend. She tells Gretchen and Karen about it but gets shut down immediately due to “girl code”, they tell her that she can’t entertain that because they don’t date each other’s exes. After school, they invite her over to Regina’s house and find out about their Burn Book.
The next day Cady tells Janis and Damian about the book, and they tell her about how Regina and Janis used to be friends but ended due to Regina outing Janis as a lesbian and telling the whole school she was obsessed with her after a game of spin the bottle. Cady continues to flirt with Aaron and pretends to be dumb as an excuse to keep talking to him which leads to him inviting her to a Halloween party. At the party Regina finds out about Cady’s crush on Aaron, filled with jealousy, she starts to flirt with Aaron and ends up kissing him which has Cady fuming in anger.
With anger still built up in Cady, she and Janis plan to take down Regina. Starting with Cady gifting Regina Kalteen Bars which makes people gain weight but Cady tells her the opposite. The trio also makes Gretchen insecure with the school Candy Cane-Grams which reveals Regina’s secret that she cheats on Aaron with a football player Shane Omen.
The Winter Talent Show isn’t so iconic when Regina falls flat on her face and leaves her embarrassed and humiliated in front of the whole school. Her social status plummets, and leaves a spot for a new “queen bee” and Cady takes the crown.
Janis invites Cady to her art show, but Cady turns it down telling her she has to go with her mom to Madison. With Cady’s social status skyrocketing the plastic gets to her head and quickly gets convinced to throw a party instead of traveling with her mom. She convinces her mom to let her stay home so she can “go to Janis’s art show” but throws a party instead.
At the party, Cady drunkenly tells Aaron that she purposely failed math so she could get close to him. This leads to him storming out of the room feeling betrayed, and Cady runs out of the house to catch up to him but gets stopped by Janis and Damian who are both livid. The argument results in Cady accusing Janis of being obsessed with her and Janis responds back saying she is fully plastic, renouncing their friendship.
That night Regina isn’t invited to the party, she finds out from her mother that the Kalteen Bars that Cady gave Regina make people gain weight. That led her to spiral and put a photo of her in the Burn Book. The next day at school she deliberately throws all the pages from the book in the hallway which causes an outburst of physical violence between all the junior girls at school.
Principal Duvall and Ms. Norbury fill all the junior girls into the gymnasium to find the source of the book. Ms. Norbury stages an exercise, encouraging the girls to apologize to each other about the way they have treated each other. Janis speaks out and reveals the whole plan to take revenge on Regina, who storms out in anger. Cady follows her outside and during their confrontation, Regina is hit by a bus.
Cady recognizes what she has caused and takes responsibility for the book, which gives her a three-week suspension. Ms. Norbury offers her an extra credit opportunity to join the Mathletes at their state competition. She gladly accepts and helps them win the competition.
At the Spring Fling dance, Cady apologizes to Regina and she reciprocates back to her. Cady is elected Spring Fling Queen but up on stage breaks the crown and throws the pieces to the girls in the crowd, telling them that they are all special in their own way. After she gets off stage she apologizes to Janis and Damian and they accept it and she rejoins their friend group.
She then makes up with Aaron with the scene ending in them kissing.
“Mean Girls” was fun but an okay movie overall. Some scenes are pretty cringy but all the dancing and singing numbers were very creative. If you ask me which one I like better, I would say the original 2004 “Mean Girls”.
