Mean Girls (#506)


Before I went to see MEAN GIRLS,  I did some research to test my memory and to discern whether I had seen the first iteration, which I learned had been released some 20 years ago. I did not but I think I would have preferred to have seen the first version but I don’t think I missed much.  I also don’t think Tina Fey, the screenwriter, changed anything significant.  Except someone added a lot of bad songs and dancing, none of which added to my enjoyment of the latest effort.  Tina was so desperate that she reprised her role as a math teacher and drafted poor Tim Meadows to play the principal again.  This film was largely populated by a bunch of unknown-to-me actors and actresses without much ability or spunk. For those of you who care, this is a high school movie about high school antics. The innocent transfer student who has been home schooled while living with her parents in Kenya hasn’t a clue on how to behave amidst the anti-social behavior demonstrated by her classmates.  She makes the mistake of being captured and captivated by The Plastics, a snotty threesome led by a snotty rich girl, and things go downhill--not that things ever got uphill.  I did not like this very silly movie.  Stay home and stream something instead of venturing out to watch this one.  Critics, who were likely teeny boppers when the first version played,  gave it 68% thumbs up, but they liked the first version starring Lindsay Lohan and Rachael McAdams a lot more—84%.  Interestingly, the audience ratings were exactly the same for both--66%.

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