The new remake of the classic Mean Girls movie has received mixed reviews. Those who are fans of the original movie and musical definitely are a bit disappointed. The idea of the new movie was to make the songs sound more like a “Spotify playlist” rather than a musical, and fans of the musical aren’t happy about that decision. Fans of the original movie aren’t too happy about the remake being a musical either. In almost all the advertising for the new movie they didn’t mention that it was going to be a musical. When people went to theaters they were surprised to find Cady Heron randomly singing in her math class. The original movie was one of those iconic 2000’s movies that everyone has seen and loved.
The cast of the new movie was not like the original, and not like the musical either. Renee Rapp plays the famous Regina George, and she also played Regina in the musical on Broadway. Cady Heron was played by Angourie Rice, who I don’t think has a very musical theater voice, but more of a choir voice. She does not fit in with many of the songs when she needs to be belting (singing loud). She sang it more as a sad lullaby rather than a power ballad. Dameon Hubbard, played by Juquel Spivey, was an excellent representation of the character Dameion. Janis Sarkisian was played by Auli’i Cravalho, who also played Moana in the Disney movie, Moana. Gretchen Weiners was played by Bebe Woods, and in the original movie, Gretchen was the daughter of a wealthy Toaster Strudel magnate, which left many fans a little disappointed. Aaron Samules was played by Christopher Briney, known for also playing Conrad Fisher from The Summer I Turned Pretty, and in the original musical, Aaron sang, but in the movie he didn’t sing at all. Avantika Vandanapu who played Karen Sheety, was a very good representation of Karen.
Unbeknownst to many, the remake cut almost all the elements that made the original Mean Girls so loved. All the jokes about race and any sextual coments were removed. In the process of modernizing the beloved classic, they took out some of the key moments that made the audience fall in love with Cady in the first place, such as: in the scene where they are performing the “jingle bell rock” for the annual talent show, the music is supposed to malfunction which leads to Cady saving the day by singing the rest of the song. Instead of that, Regina just ends up falling.
In the new movie they made social media a big part of the plot. In the original movie other students at the school had “confessions” to show that when you’re popular everyone knows everything about you, but in the new movie instead people posted videos with what they had to say. One of the most iconic parts of the original movie was the burn book. In the book are every horrible thing that the plastics have said about other students at Northshore High School. When Regina feels threatened by Cady she adds herself to the book, to make it look like Cady had written it about her. Regina then copies the book and spreads it all over the school to cause chaos, but instead of having a big scene of her throwing paper down the halls, she just drops the book and someone finds it then posts it. Doing so had the same outcome of everything turning to chaos but not the same effect as in the original movie. It felt much more anticlimactic and not as powerful.
The main thing that left fans of the movie and musical very disappointed was how they changed, or cut out everyone’s favorite iconic scenes . For example, when Regina says to Cady, “Get in loser we’re going shopping.” They just cut it short and said “get in loser”. That was only one of the many scenes that got replaced. There has also been a lot of talk about how they cut many of the songs from the musical that everyone loved, such as “Stop”, “Where do you belong?” and “More is better”. With the addition of some new scenes and jokes such as, when they are having a talent show Damian ends up singing the “ICarly” theme song in French.
In the end, even though many things were changed and removed from the movie, overall it was pretty good. It was not as much like the original as I had hoped, but it was still fun and I enjoyed watching it. It feels less like a remake and more like it was “inspired by” the original film.
