“Means Girls” was a hit movie during the early 2000s and since then its popularity has increased, making the name Regina George a name known throughout the world.
As the popularity of the movie increased, it was made into a broadway show, where the story of the “Mean Girls” was now produced with more singing and dancing.
The show was an instant hit throughout the theatre community and was expected to stop there, until 2022, when the idea of creating the broadway musical back into a movie was formed, and on Jan. 12, 2024, the movie was finally released.
Broadway star Renee Rapp is returning to her role as Regina George alongside her castmates, Angourie Rice (Cady Heron), Avantika Vandanapu (Karen Shetty), Bebe Wood (Gretchen Wieners), Auli’i Cravalho (Janis Sarskisian) and Christopher Briney (Aaron Samuels).
Right off the bat, this movie recieved some of the most mixed reviews. All online, there has been hate towards the broadway aspects of the movies, which could be attributed to the fact that it was not advertised as a musical.
“Well I’ve seen a mixture of reactions. There’s a fine example of yesterday when I was in the theater. I was serving this group of girls their food and they were singing along to ‘Stupid in Love,’ but the group next to them was laughing in confusion as to why Cady was doing a weird skippy dance at the end. A lot of different reactions because there are different levels of familiarity with the musical in the audience,” Talar Keshishian, a student at Aliso and a movie theater employee, shares about her experience working during this movie.
At first, with all the mixed reviews of the show, I was not looking forward to watching this movie, but within five seconds of the movie starting, my thoughts began to change. Auli’i Cravalho started up the movie with a big spin on Janis which actually made her much more likable than the original film, and her voice was flawless.
Ashley Atkinson (11), a student who loves the “Mean Girls” franchise, shared, “For me, this movie is very personal because I got to see Renee Rapp on Broadway and I’m excited to see how this film differs from the original and the musical.”
Cady is known to be a quirky character who isn’t in touch with the modern world and although Angourie Rice was good at the quirky aspects of the character, I felt as if her as Cady adapted faster to high school than what you would expect.
My favorite characters of the movie were Avantika in her role as Karen Shetty and Bebe Wood as Gretchen Wieners. In the original film, both the characters lacked a lot of personality and I feel as if both of these actresses understood their characters and developed them impressively.
One thing I was dreading going into the movie was the songs. I wanted to prepare myself by listening to their soundtrack and when listening, I noticed an abundance of changes in every song from the Broadway originals, especially in “Meet the Plastics” and “Sexy.” The execution however in “Sexy” definitely was worth all the changes and was extremely enjoyable to watch, although the same cannot be said for “Meet the Plastics.” In the Broadway show, that was the introduction to all of the Plastics, but in the movie it was just an introduction to Regina, which defeated the purpose of the song.
This allows me to move onto the next point, which is that Renee Rapp did not deserve all the hype that she received for this movie as her performance was dull. In every scene I watched it felt as if she wasn’t taking this role seriously and didn’t put effort into it. Her songs felt as if she was in a music video and not in a movie. I feel as if her new career focussing on music took away her acting ability and there were other actresses that could have done better as Regina.
Christopher Briney, on the other hand, deserved more screen time and recognition. His performance as Aaron Samuels most definitely made all teen girls fall back in love with him, and he really understood how to portray this character in a different way than the original.
After all the hate this movie has gotten I have to say, I don’t understand why. This movie was a very feel good teen movie, and sure, had “cringe” parts, but it still was enjoyable to watch. If I had the chance to see it again, I would definitely do it. I feel as if everyone took the movie too seriously, but in the greater picture I saw so many people walk into the theater expecting the worst and ending up falling in love with the story all over again. I believe this movie was a great combination of the original and the musical and I recommend it to anyone who loves music and comedy, and I have to say this movie was indeed,“Fetch.”
