mean girls the musical the movie is a MESS 🎶🐭📚 (mean girls 2024 review)

Mean Girls the musical is a mess teen comedies are a genre unto themselves with films like Ferris Beer's day off super bad and clueless being considered Staples of the genre eventually permeating pop culture to the point that they've even been referenced in other movies that's when you know you've made it one of the most iconic teen comedies of the 21st century is undeniably 2004's Mean Girls which in turn was Loosely based on the 2002 book queen bees and wannab bees equal parts sincere and ridiculous the film highlighted the very real struggles that teen girls faced when navigating the complicated social hierarchies of high school in 2018 a Broadway musical based on the film premiered and 6 years after that it was adapted for the big screen you know Hollywood is struggling creatively when a movie based on a musical based on a movie based on a book winds up getting greenlet released 20 years after the original film The Mean Girls musical movie has wound up becoming one of the most talked about films of 2024 so far and not necessarily for good reasons with fans of both the original movie and musical shredding it online and now I'm going to be joining the discourse in today's video I'll be talking about what I did and didn't like about the new Mean Girls movie including the casting and costume design obviously there will be spoilers although I'd argue that it isn't really spoiling since the plot has been commen knowledge for two decades I also think it's important to emphasize that this is my opinion meaning that there's a high chance that you won't agree with everything I say which is totally fine just don't be a dick about it and before people come for me besides being extremely well versed on the original film like I've literally interviewed the costume designer I'm also a theater kid so trust me I'm not hating just to hate now that that's out of the way let's get into it I've said it before and I'll say it again but I'm not an adaptation purist I firmly believe that some things do need to be changed to better suit the direction of the new project it's standard practice for musical movies to cut songs when making the change from stage to screen just look at mam Mia hairspray into the woods or Chicago and I personally think that mean girls could have benefited from being more selective about which songs they move forward with in total the film has 17 musical numbers of varying lengths which I personally think is about 5 to too many it works when stage musicals are song Heavy because choreograph dance numbers and emotional belting are better fit for that Medium but in a film all that singing and dancing with little to no breaks of normal dialogue in between can be rather exhausting as a result the movie wound up feeling more like a bunch of music videos that were Loosely tied together with bits of dialogue instead of coming across as a developed story with emotional beats and character growth I know a lot of fans of the original musical disliked how they reworked the songs for the movie saying that they were more reminiscent of generic pop than musical theater I don't necessarily disagree but I actually don't have an issue with that myself in fact I actually felt like this new sound was appropriate for a film that's all about the modern High School experience what I did have issues with were the vocals especially those of angari rice who played Katie Heron to my knowledge rice has no previous Music Experience and boy can you tell I don't know if she was actually flat the the entire time or the amount of autotune they wound up using on her just made it sound that way but her musical numbers were incredibly lackluster especially when compared to vocal powerhouses like Renee rap Ali e Calo and jaquel Spivey I also felt as though rice had difficulty expressing emotions in song sounding exactly the same when she's telling the audience about falling in love as she does when she seeks revenge on Regina which is obviously a problem even in scenes where she wasn't singing I felt like like Katie's personality fell flat essentially being awkward and boring the first half of the movie then and boring the other she also came across as far more judgmental when in the original she's too clueless to bother being condescending towards others considering kattie is one of the main characters someone we're supposed to root for then hate then forgive ry's monotonous performance leaves the character a hollow shell of herself which winds up negatively impacting the entire movie it's harsh but I genuinely think that she was miscast unsurprisingly Renee rap killed it in all of her musical numbers which makes sense since she'd actually played Regina George on Broadway but the character herself feels incredibly one note in this movie when compared to her 2004 counterpart this lack of character development is a problem in the musical as well since Regina is given a significantly smaller role but I felt like it was even more noticeable on the big screen when watching the original movie it's obvious why Regina George is is the most popular girl in school sure she's pretty and Rich but so are Gretchen and Karen it's Regina's actual personality that makes her such a successful dictator at her core she's cunning charismatic controlling and confident with these attributes allowing her to rule the entire School a master manipulator even when she's mean to someone she knows exactly what to say and do to reel them back in she's your best friend one moment and your worst enemy the next what's perhaps most terrifying about this version of Regina George is that she's realistic perfectly capturing the two-faced personality we've all seen in that sort of popular but mean teen Renee raps Regina is much less nuanced with her personality being reduced to snarky comments and sex appeal and the character is so rude to everybody all the time that I was left wondering how the hell she became popular to begin with if this kind of girl was real no one would hang out with her it wouldn't matter how hot watch you was although I will admit Renee rap looks so good during the someone gets hurt number that I completely understood why Aaron got back together with her Gretchen Wieners played by BB wood is just there wood can at least carry a tune but her one musical number winds up being rather forgettable although that might just be my biases showing since I don't like the song to begin with they try to make it funny with some awkward faces and overe exaggerated blocking but it doesn't work for a scene that's supposed to be heartfelt the movie focuses on her insecurities more than anything else leaving her a nervous wreck but she doesn't feel as desperate for Regina's approval as she did in the original especially since she winds up spending most of her time with Karen I don't think this is a problem with Wood's portrayal but more so the fault of the screenwriters the plastic I wound up liking the most was Karen Shetty which was pretty surprising considering she isn't my favorite in the original I know some people felt like she was too stupid in this movie but I actually think it worked purely because of how much avantica committed to the bed she's rolling off stage drinking soda with her nose and getting distracted by her own boobs and it's hilarious sure it veers into caricature territory but it doesn't feel mean-spirited in fact it's what makes the character so Charming I almost wish all of the cast had been more over the top in their portrayals since that sort of exaggeration is a perfect fit for a movie that breaks into musical numbers every 5 minutes speaking of which sexy is a load of fun and is probably one of the most memorable songs in the entire film even if the vocals aren't as strong as the Broadway version avantika's face card is also unreal every time I saw her on screen I was just like Cas her in everything people were quick to criticize the casting of Chris Briney as Aaron Samuels and I won't lie I wasn't initially on board with it either but by the end of the film he'd actually won me over he has a sort of dimwitted boy next or Charm that I think worked really well for the character they just needed to spend more time on his look because he was kind of giving Bill Skarsgard two of the film's standouts were Al Calio as Janice imik and jaquel Spivey as Damen hubard besides absolutely delivering in the vocal department they were also the only ones who could hold a candle to their original counterparts both actors stayed true to the characters while also leaning into the absurdity of the situation which made their musical numbers more believable because they weren't attempting to play it straight like all of the characters they wound up delivering many of the lines from the original movie but they were actually able to breathe new life into them the scene where they catch Katie at the party and drive off on a scooter had me laughing my ass off I saw some people say that the entire cast should have been made up of more established stars but I don't necessarily think that that automatically equates to a better film let's not forget that in the original movie the person with the most stacked resume was Lindsay loen but for Rachel McAdams Amanda Cipher and Lizzy Kaplan it was one of their first acting jobs star power is one of those things that can't be taught and the original cast was absolutely loaded with it the new one not so much in order to update the story for modern times there are several minor plot points that differ from the original movie and musical including the names of the lunch table clicks the exact ways Regina is sabotaged the roles of the teachers and the character's romantic relationships these changes are fairly harmless most of them making little to no impact on the main story line but I do want to talk about a few the most notable ones Janice is officially a lesbian in this film something a lot of fans of the original wished was the case to begin with unlike the original film Janice's supposed sexuality isn't the Catalyst for her social Exile instead people believe that she's a dangerous pyromaniac which I personally think works since being gay is a lot more normalized than it was 201 years ago my issue is that the film doesn't really touch on this before the big reveal which is a shame because there were plenty of opportunities to do so coach Carr is no longer a predator which I think is a smart move considering the issue is carelessly played for Laughs in the original but I do wish they'd given John Ham more to do since he's genuinely a great comedic actor Tim Meadows returns as principal du all and Tina feay as Miss norbury and my first thought when they popped up on screen was damn they haven't aged a day in the original film principal Duval seems to have a bit of a crush on Miss sberry and I love that they decided to take it a step further in the new movie by having them actually be in a relationship it was genuinely cute Tina Fay also wound up delivering what I consider to be one of the funniest gags in the entire movie I don't want to spoil it but if you know you know one thing I didn't like was how often phone screens were used it's one thing to show the characters texting on an iPhone it's another to be showing someone's for you page it just feels like it'll wind up dating the film exponentially not to mention it just isn't very visually Dynamic what I find especially interesting about the 2024 film is that it had nearly twice the budget of the original and yet it somehow looks cheaper apart from the iffy Direction and weirdly yellow color grading I'd pin this on the production design with the overall aesthetic of the film leaving a lot to be desired sure you could argue that it was originally set to be released direct to streaming and that's why it looks like that but I think that's a cop out the filmmaker stated that teens today don't go to malls anymore but by having the film exclusively take place at school or at various characters houses it winds up feeling like they're living in a giant bubble especially since many of the sets are so generic Regina George's bedroom in the original movie was unattainable to the average teenager but in the new film you could just run over to Target and get everything in frame the costume design is somehow even more disappointing especially when compared to the original film it's incredibly important that the Plastics dress in a way that other girls find fashionable and enviable they're supposed to be Barbie dolls which is why they're dressed hyper femininely while carrying around Louis Vuitton bags and wearing berbery skirts they look like celebrities not your average high schooler which is what gives them power over their peers in contrast Katie starts off as frumpy not on purpose but out of of genuine naive which highlights how out of place she is in their world before slowly transforming into a plastic herself meanwhile Janice purposely dresses herself in a manner that is considered out of style by others in order to highlight her role as an outsider while the counterculture motifs mirror her own anti-plastic sentiments the new movie has none of this World building and character development with costume designer Tom Broker saying quote this is not not a Euphoria High School this is set in the suburbs of Chicago and kids today basically wear what they wore to bed throw a backpack on and go to school if you're lucky they're wearing sneakers instead of slippers how did he miss the point so badly the characters in Mean Girls weren't dressed fashionably just for the hell of it they were doing so in order to make themselves stand out from the crowd they absolutely should not be wearing what all the other kids are wearing I'm not saying that these outfits are all ugly or that teens today aren't wearing similar things but they do nothing for the story Regina George is dressed in a less hyper feminine manner than the original film which broker said was because he wanted both men and women to be sexually attracted to her I'm not adverse to the concept but I think it utterly failed in execution because so many things weren't tailored properly making her look unrefined although Regina wears designer Brands like Versace and Valentino The Styling makes these outfits look incredibly cheap completely missing the unattainable factor that makes her so powerful this is likely because the costume designer Incorporated clothing from more affordable Brands like American Apparel princess Paulie and even cider yes cider she and's sister-in-law the original movie similarly did a high low thing for the Plastics but the quality of lowcost Brands back in the early 2000s is Leaps and Bounds better than they are today if you want a better idea of what a different higher quality clothing would have made look no further than this promotional video while this version of Regina at least has a somewhat distinctive look Gretchen and Karen are practically interchangeable with one another in fact when the trailer first dropped I actually got them confused which again doesn't make sense considering how different their personalities are Gretchen should not be showing off her bra that's a Karen move broker also mentioned that he took INSP Iration from Ariana Grande's thank you next video for the girls Christmas costumes which sure is more trendy but completely disregards the fact that they made those costumes back in middle school they're supposed to look like they were thrown together with random arts and craft supplies daman's outfits do feel like an improvement on his predecessors in large part because clothing is more inclusive now and all of the fun patterns genuinely feel like things he'd gravitate towards I just wish we'd actually seen him in a sweater vest considering that's what he loans Katie funnily Janice probably has the trendiest outfits in the entire film which kind of feels like the antithesis of her character sure they gave her unconventional makeup to make her feel more edgy but with her oversized graphic teas and ripped jeans she doesn't really feel like much of an outcast I can't help but compare mean girls to other satirical gen Z films that have come out recently like Bottoms books smart and bodies bodies bodies which seem to have a far better understanding of the nuances of that generation while the original Mean Girls movie has been relatable to generations of teens I don't see the new movie having the same impact but on the plus side it is better than that horrendous sequel from 2011 what did you think of Mean Girls the Musical the movie I hope you enjoyed this video don't forget to like And subscribe and I'll see you soon [Music] bye

Channel: ModernGurlz

Views: 354,608

Keywords: style, modern gurlz, 90s fashion, fashion, movie review, movie commentary, moderngurlz, review, movies, Film analysis, movie analysis, analysis, video essay, movie reviews, television, entertainment, tv answers, ranking, ranking movies, costume design, fashion analysis, style analysis, modern girls, film theory, lindsay lohan, renee rapp, regina george, mean girls, mean girls review, mean girls movie, mean girls musical, mean girls 2024, 2000s movie, mean girls musical movie

Id: n8PUsR9CAPE

Length: 16min 39sec (999 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2024