Movie Review: Mean Girls (2024)

When history looks back at the 2024 version of Mean Girls, it will likely be best remembered for Paramount's decision to conceal the fact that it was a musical in nearly all of its marketing materials (except for the first teaser that played in front of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour concert movie, which makes the treatment of its musical status as an open secret even more bizarre). Remaking the 2004 teen comedy classic in any capacity is a tricky proposition for a variety of reasons (how poorly some of the jokes have aged, modern audiences' familiarity with/attachment to the original film, the differences in high school culture between now and then) and for what it's worth, the team behind Mean Girls' 24 does an admirable job of adding modern flourishes to the script and putting their own fingerprints on this iconic collection of characters without changing their spirit or the purpose they serve to the story. 

The problem with the balancing act between the familiar and the new that drives Mean Girls is that the former constantly trips up the latter. For every new idea that works whether it be using a song to explore a character or offer up a different take on an iconic scene (the reworkings of the Cady's first meeting with the Plastics in the cafeteria and the Halloween Party scene are particularly effective) or demonstrating the evolution of bullying through the lens of social media, there's the verbatim retelling of jokes that anyone who has seen the original movie are very familiar with or slight variations on them to make them suitable for modern audiences that prevent them from landing with the same punch that they did 2 decades ago. It's almost like watching a band mix things up by playing some killer originals before pivoting back to some passable covers because they feel the audience would rather hear something they're familiar with instead of something new. This desire to comfort the fans of the original with callbacks frequently dulls the vibrant new personality that regularly finds ways to cut through all of the familiarity present and it's kind of ironic that a film that counts the concepts of personal growth, self-acceptance/discovery and not giving into peer pressure among its major themes is so afraid to establish its own identity. Nostalgia can be a real crutch when artists allow it to get in the way of their own takes on ideas and Mean Girls '24 would've likely been much better than a decent modern remake if it had just let go of the past and fully embraced being the thing that the studio that released it was too ashamed to admit that it is: A fucking musical reimagining of Mean Girls. 

Grade: B-