[Mean Girls (2004) clip]
Fellow reporter Jess and I braved the great outdoors that is downtown Evanston during zero-degree weather for a very important goal: watching the new Mean Girls movie. But wait, didn’t Mean Girls come out 20 years ago? Yes. Yes it did. Despite the lack of marketing indicating its melodic nature, Mean Girls (2024) is a musical with essentially the same story as the original film. It’s not a remake—it’s an adaptation of the broadway play of the same name, which was adapted from the original movie.
[Broadway promo for Mean Girls]
Mean Girls opened on Broadway in March of 2018, running until March of 2020. A second run was planned for 2021 but was canceled due to the pandemic. The cast has toured in various other locations, but the 2018 to 2020 run remains its only Broadway appearance. The show won multiple awards across different competitions and saw a plethora of Tony Award nominees including Best Musical and Best Original Score1.
[“Meet the Plastics” by Reneé Rapp]
For many, the appeal of the movie lies in the casting choice of Regina. Reneé Rapp— who had a role as the replacement for Regina on Broadway and subsequently starred in a number of shows in 2019—reprised this iconic part for the Mean Girls movie2. In addition to acting, she also happens to be a popular singer with multiple Billboard-charting songs. Other notable cast members include Auli’i Cravalho, the star of the Disney animated movie Moana, as main character Cady’s best friend Janis, Angourie Rice of The Nice Guys as Cady herself, and The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Christopher Briney. Creator Tina Fey reprises her role as Ms. Norbury, and the stacked cast also includes Ashley Park, Jenna Fisher, Tim Meadows, and Jon Hamm. I, personally, was excited to see where Reneé Rapp would take the notorious antagonist.
LOUISE: Mother, I would do anything for her, truly.
GABY: That’s crazy.
LOUISE: She was my favorite.
I was not the only one excited about this casting choice.
EVELYN: I think Reneé Rapp is exceptional amongst the rest of the cast, for sure.
NICOLE: I think Reneé Rapp is very talented, so that was enjoyable.
After the movie, Jess and I interviewed moviegoers Louise, Gaby, Nicole, and Evelyn. Nicole, Louise, and Gaby seemed to have a consensus about the movie as a whole.
NICOLE: I thought it was terrible in the funniest way. Like, I was thoroughly enjoying myself, but it was not a good movie.
LOUISE: Um, I thought it was really camp, and I think the movie musical is back—in cinema.
GABY: I personally really enjoyed it, as a theater person. But, I think if you’re not a theater person, you’re going to hate this so bad.
On the other side, Evelyn was surprised by how she felt about it.
EVELYN: I actually really liked it. I was kind of expecting to kind of get bored through the end of it because I’ve seen—obviously—the original film, but I felt like this kind of changed the perspective of the story to be from Regina’s perspective versus Cady’s. So, I felt like I really empathized with Regina a lot more in this version.
The movie does provide an interesting look at Regina’s side of the story. A lot of this perspective is told through song—it is a musical—and some of these songs are excellent.
[“Someone Gets Hurt” by Reneé Rapp]
That was a clip from “Someone Gets Hurt” by Reneé Rapp, and it is one of many musical numbers in the movie.
LOUISE: I think it’s a totally different beast. Like, the movie musical is doing a whole separate thing with it—still good. But, it’s just they’re so different, and you have to have that mindset going into it.
We asked how they compare the original with the musical.
EVELYN: I liked the original better, but I think it’s a pretty good, like, reinterpretation of it.
LOUISE: If you’re watching this to be nostalgic, you shouldn’t be watching it. You should just watch it for, like, the music and the pretty visuals.
NICOLE: I think I laughed more in this one, but obviously the original is better as a movie overall.
That is one thing I’ll say about this movie. If you are interested in seeing it, a packed theater might be the best place to do so. Even if the movie was cheesy at times, the entire audience was eating it up. Half the comedy of the movie was just hearing the commentary of the people sitting around us.
EVELYN: I think, like, what the production team for this movie was working with from the material from the musical. I think they really did a good job.
NICOLE: I think you should see it, just for the laughs. It was really…I was—We were cracking up the whole time. It literally felt like an SNL skit, so…
[Mean Girls (2024) trailer]
Go see Mean Girls! It’s modern camp, and it’s a fun time! For WNUR News, I’m Max Milo.
