Fans of the beloved 2004 comedy Mean Girls were excited to watch another Mean Girls movie, released in theaters Jan. 12. However, the new movie is not simply a reboot of the popular teen comedy, it is an adaptation of the Broadway musical that was based on the original film. The release of the movie musical is especially exciting because Pace Drama is putting on Mean Girls for the musical this spring.
Mean Girls is the story of Cady Heron, a student who has just moved to the US and has to learn how to navigate American high school. Aside from some updated scenes featuring TikTok drama (as the film is supposed to be set in modern day), the plot is largely the same; Cady and her friends scheme to take down Regina George, the queen of the school, while Cady falls in love with Aaron, Regina’s ex-boyfriend.
The fresh new cast brought a fun spin to the classic. One role that didn’t change was Tina Fey returning as Cady’s math teacher Ms. Norbury. As she was the writer of both movies, her reprisal was fun, though confusing, as she doesn’t look much older from her original performance. The 2004 movie launched the careers of many stars, including Lindsay Lohan as Cady and Rachel McAdams as Regina. Not knowing Angourie Rice, who plays Cady, going in, I thought she did a fine job. Some criticized her singing in the movie, but for an Australian learning to sing in an American accent, it wasn’t bad. But the real star of the adaptation was Reneé Rapp. Only having heard of her music, I was surprised to see her in a lead acting role, only later finding out that she was the original actress for Regina in the Broadway musical. Love interest Aaron is played by Christopher Briney, who you may know as Conrad Fisher, the clearly inferior love interest in the teen Amazon drama The Summer I Turned Pretty. He plays a more likable, though less interesting, character in Mean Girls. Unlike Rice and Rapp, however, Briney does not do his own singing, so I cannot comment on his vocal chops.
While the plot to the new movie was familiar, the great acting and spectacular songs made this release an exciting new blockbuster. While the new movie musical will never be able to replace the original, it still made for a fun burst of early-2000s nostalgia.