It is hard not to roll eyes when, towards the start of this musical remake, young Cady Heron (Angourie Rice), entering high school after a spell abroad, is shown the dining hall and its competing cliques (or “clicks”, as Americans will insist on saying). Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is now as much of a cliche as a cowboy entering a saloon to menacing silence.
The 2004 classic, written by Tina Fey, was, of course, among the works that defined those cliches. All the more reason to wonder if MG24 brings anything new to the conversation. Well, it has songs. Not particularly great songs, alas. I haven’t seen the stage show on which it’s based, but, as is too often the case with recent musical versions of movies, the tunes have that bland, honed theatre-workshop feeling. Spotlights pick out characters who, no longer at home to subtext, spill all their inner fears on to the orchestra stalls. The best number is just too big for the screen. Renée Rapp, breaking wine glasses with her upper register as the chief villain, enters to Wagnerian rumbles with “My name is Regina George, and I am a massive deal ...” More pantomime than teencom. Elsewhere, it is all jingly so-so singalong.
Yet there is enough of the original beast remaining to pass the time pleasantly enough. Based on Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees & Wannabes, a serious study of high-school politics, Fey’s script told how Cady was persuaded to infiltrate Regina’s terrifying “Plastics” clique and how she eventually became hooked on their shtick. It was like Bridge on the River Kwai for middle-American teens.
Though there are no performances to rival those by Lindsay Lohan or Rachel McAdams in the 2004 flick, the current cast, all possessed of pipes, bellow their way through the action with admirable enthusiasm. Rice is better at the clean-girl than the mean-girl stuff, but her journey is just about believable. Fey, who also cowrote the stage show, and Tim Meadows, a tireless performer, wipe away the decades as they reprise their teacher roles. If the first film didn’t exist, the current Mean Girls would impress as a modestly clever variation on common tropes. As it is, the current picture will remain a footnote to earlier triumphs.
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Mean Girls is in cinemas from Wednesday, January 17th
