LOS ALAMITOS, CA — The debut month of 2024 welcomes a musical remake of the iconic 2004 movie, “Mean Girls,” and the 2017 Broadway musical, with a new ensemble cast ready to showcase their acting and vocal talents. Public opinion has reacted quite negatively towards the musical adaptation, but how does a member of their target audience react to the musical?

The main plot and scenes of “Mean Girls” are kept similar enough to the original that the parallelism between the musical and the movie is discernible. A 17-year-old Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) moves to North Shore High School from Kenya and befriends Janis (Aulií Cravalho) and Damian (Jacquel Spivey). Soon enough, Cady encounters the reigning clique of the school, the “Plastics” and the queen bee of the group, Regina George (Reneé Rapp). As Cady befriends the group, she soon discovers why the high school clique is given their nickname as the drama begins to unfold throughout the movie.

Since the film was adapted as a movie remake of the Broadway musical, the musical numbers seemed well performed as Rapp was a saving grace to the film, displaying her strong singing voice and performances. The musical’s songs featured hit musical numbers such as “World Burn” and “A Cautionary Tale.” As Rapp had previously played the role of Regina in the 2017 Broadway musical, her talents clearly shined as she proved to be an upcoming star in Hollywood and the music scene. Her performance, mixed with a powerful rendition of the musical numbers, allowed the audience to truly believe her role as Regina as well as outshining the rest of the cast.

“Overall, I would say that she was the most interesting character for me because her voice seemed pretty well-suited for the role [of Regina George,] and it was interesting to see a film depiction of [Regina]. Out of the whole cast, her whole performance was the most interesting,” said Los Alamitos High School junior Ava Lealliie.

“Mean Girls” (2004) was marked by iconic outfits that featured a variety of shades of pink and interesting textures that have shown relevancy for both the early 2000s and now. It seems the musical missed the mark on the fashion-forward nature of the original; the film’s costume department has come under scrutiny from social media users linking the outfits to the quality of Shein, hinting at the cheap and flashy quality of styling. There have been examples of modern movies leaning into fashion trends in a tasteful and appealing way. However, it seems that leaning into current untasteful fashion trends with a lack of timelessness was the demise of the appeal of the musical.

“For me personally, the movie was not what I wanted from a ‘Mean Girls’ musical. The styling was really off, the performances were pretty hit-or-miss, and it didn’t do much with the resources they had. The acting wasn’t very memorable, and the whole movie is like a fever dream,” said Los Al sophomore Reese Poe.

The major downfall of the adaptation of “Mean Girls” (2004) is the habit of Hollywood movies to constantly remake beloved movies from the 90s and early 2000s to a more modern background. In my honest opinion, the remake had too many expectations by embodying a beloved classic that revolutionized the early 2000s pop culture. By modernizing a film that is beloved by many, there is great room for failure, and it seems that this remake clearly missed the mark on making a good movie. 

An aspect made obvious in this musical was the desperate attempt to relate to the younger generation, therefore erasing all parts of the movie that can make iconic movies re-watchable 20 years later. It’s no surprise that modern films have quickly adapted themselves to match the believed “wants” of the young generation by creating exaggerated references to modern pop culture, playing a cringe-worthy sequence of events.

Altogether, I did find certain aspects of the movie musical amusing, such as the Lindsay Lohan cameo and various nods to iconic phrases and scenes. Ultimately though, I would not recommend this musical to an audience who enjoyed “Mean Girls” as a whole due to the bizarre execution of this 2024 remake.