Mean Girls movie review

MOVIE TITLE: Mean Girls (the musical)

This musical version of the popular original movie is now playing in theaters, as well as on Vudu.

RATING: PG-13

LENGTH: 1 hour 52 minutes

MOVIE REVIEW MOM GRADE: B

IN A NUTSHELL:

It’s time for a musical remake of the 2004 movie Mean Girls! It has a modern facelift and is filled with music and laughs. Already, it has been nominated for Best Comedy movie by Queerty.

Screenwriting credits go to Tina Fey, who also plays one of the teachers at the school, and produced the film with her ole boss and friend from Saturday Night Life, Lorne Michaels.

The film was directed by Samantha Jayne.

THINGS I LIKED:

The talented and diverse, young cast includes Angourie Rice, Renee Rapp, Auli’I Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, Avantika, and Bebe Wood.
The adult cast includes some of our comedic talents like Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Jon Hamm, Jenna Fischer, Busy Philipps, and Ashley Park.
There are some powerhouse voices in this cast! I especially enjoyed Auli’I Cravalho’s performance.
The opening musical scene tells us this is a cautionary tale. I hope high school kids watch this and learn from it.
Kudos to Jeff Richmond for his original music in the film.
I like it when the students gather in the gym and finally recognize that they’re not just victims but also perpetrators of unkindness.
In case you’re wondering about the cast from the original movie, we get a fun and cute cameo performance by Lindsay Lohan. One of her lines is “This has only happened once before.” Ha ha
We see a lot of growth among quite a few characters.
Some of the characters break the “4^th wall” by talking directly at the audience to share important life lessons.
Honestly, I don’t understand why people can’t just be nice to one another. As they say, hurt people hurt people.
There is plenty of visual and spoken humor throughout.
The movie definitely incorporates the viral nature of social media and how much harder it is to be a teenager nowadays because every mistake one makes is forever displayed for the world to see.
Nostalgia will make this fun for parents to watch, while the new technology like social media will make it feel fresh for teens to watch. No matter how much the world changes, teens will experience these same lessons over and over through the decades.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

Sometimes you can’t always understand what everyone is singing.
Sadly, I sure could relate to the teachers at the school who were so frustrated by the many students who simply didn’t care about learning. I’m a university professor and I see that apathetic attitude every day.
Some of the lyrics to the songs were really mean. I cringe thinking that kids are going to be singing some of those songs.
I’ve never seen the Broadplay musical, but I hear that this movie version of it changed quite a few things that might make fans of the stage production unhappy.
Some of the camera shots were strange choices.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Profanity
We see a lot of cleavage.
We see a lot of teens in the LGBTQ+ community

THEMES:

Betrayal
Bullying
Self-esteem
Friendship
Fake people
Learning from mistakes
Forgiveness

FUNNY LINES:

“Home school? Oh, that’s a fun way to take jobs from the union.” – (Tina Fey)
“We volunteer to amplify your lunch experience.” – Damian Hubbard (Jaquel Spivey)