Mean Girls (2024)

A 16 year old girl (Angourie Rice) returns to the U.S. from Kenya where she lived in the wild with her mother (Jenna Fischer) who homeschooled her. At her new school, she makes friends with two gay "misfits" (Jaquel Spivey, Auli'i Cravalho) but is quickly lured by "the Plastics", a trio of cliquish girls to become one of them. Based on the 2017 Broadway musical which in turned was based on the 2004 film of the same name which was based on the book QUEEN BEES AND WANNABES by Rosalind Wiseman and directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. Did we really need a musical remake of MEAN GIRLS? Of course, not. But I'm a sucker for musicals so I thought I'd check it out. The stage musical had a healthy almost two year run until Covid shut down the Broadway theatres. It received 12 Tony nominations including best musical (so much for the snooty attitude of the Tonys). The songs by Jeff Richmond and Neil Benjamin are a mediocre bunch and thankfully much of the show's original song score has been jettisoned. In the end, a pointless film (stick to the 2004 original) made by people who have no comprehension of the movie musical genre. Was the Broadway production this bad? With Renee Rapp, Avantika, Bebe Wood, Tim Meadows, Tina Fey and Lindsay Lohan (looking darn good).