The new year started off strong with the release of the highly anticipated Mean Girls remake on January 12. The movie is inspired by the Broadway musical which was based on the groundbreaking 2004 film.
This new remake combines two different versions of the Mean Girls story – the film and the broadway musical. The original movie from 2004 was so influential that 13 years later, the Mean Girls musical debuted on Broadway. The musical was based on the original movie, and added songs to round out the story. The combination of both versions in the latest installment has brought some criticism.
While the older movie received much praise, the latest release hasn’t been met with the same affection from the public. Many have criticized the movie for several reasons, including removing iconic moments from the first movie and changing the music. Sophomore Colbie Freese said, “With a remake, I think you expect a lot of original things but there wasn’t anything from the 2004 original.”
One major critique the movie received was that it felt too “modern.” With the rise of social media since the debut of the story, many things have changed about high school, friendships, and life overall. “The [use of social media] was interesting but the scenes where they lined the sides of the screen with TikTok videos was a little strange,” said Sophomore Isabelle Culinco.
Others had quite the opposite reaction to the use of technology in the new movie. “I like how they portrayed modern media,” said junior Adriana Carranza. “It’s more realistic. Everyone would’ve had their phones out…they did mess up some parts of it and it was weird because of the modernization, but I think they portrayed what a modern high school looks like.”
While many appreciated the movie they did not love it as much as they had enjoyed the first version. Claire Johnston said, “I liked it but I didn’t exactly love it. I felt like it had a little bit less personality than the original but I thought it was still pretty okay.”
There were many opinions on the quality of acting in the 2024 release. While some believed the acting was subpar, others thought that the characters were portrayed well. Karen (played by Avantika Vandanapu) and Gretchen (played by Bebe Wood), were well-liked by much of the audience. However, some thought that Aaron Samuels’ character, played by Chris Briney, was awkward and didn’t live up to their expectations. Culinco said, “It depends on the actors. Karen looked sufficiently dumb. I liked Gretchen’s acting, but some people were a little cringy sometimes.”
This new Mean Girls movie was directed as a musical by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. Many people believe that it would have been better to leave the musical on Broadway, instead of trying to convert it into a movie. Sophomore Akhilia Bhavagan offered her opinion: “I think [viewers] expected a lot of things from the old movie, but it was sort of a build-off of it…It’s great for Broadway but I don’t think it is for a movie.”
Rumors swirled when it came to people’s opinions on the new release. While there were a broad range of thoughts, there was one overwhelming feeling: compared to the original, the updated version didn’t come close to being as popular. Sophomore Maneli Malboubi agreed with the rumors when she said, “I heard it was really bad, which made me want to watch it even more, because people overreact all the time…it was really bad though.”
Another issue many people had with the remake was the amount of details left out, whether small or large. Sophomore Claire Johnston stated, “I didn’t like that they cut out Karen and Gretchen’s parts in [the musical song] “Meet The Plastics”.”
The modern version of the movie, while heavily criticized by many, has continued to be streamed in theaters throughout the world. People have spread their opinions online, across countless social media platforms, which contributes to the increased viewing of the movie. Like the past two stories, this one will go down in history as an important moment in pop culture history, despite the negative criticism. Mean Girls will forever be known.
