Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Amy Poehler
Director: Mark S Waters
The latest Lindsay Lohan vehicle and a rehash of CONFESSION OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN – on the surface MEAN GIRLS does seem a bit of a waste of time but give it a chance because it’s really quite good.
Cady (Lindsay Lohan) starts a new high school when her parents move back to the States after living in South Africa. She meets Janis (Lizzy Caplan) who convinces her to spy on a group of girls known as ‘the plastics’, three girls who are total posers and spend their time being ‘bitches’ by manipulating people and spreading rumours. Janis wants Cady to infiltrate their group and become their friend to find out their secrets and expose them for what they really are.
Cady goes along with this and works her way into the group successfully becoming a ‘plastic’ herself, but by acting like a bitch every day she soon finds herself really becoming one and when rivalry over a boy becomes an issue she uses all she’s learnt and goes to war with Regina (Rachel McAdams), the queen of the ‘plastics’, manipulating situations and turning the other two plastics Karen (Amanda Seyfried) and Gretchen (Lacy Chabert) against their queen.
MEAN GIRLS takes the overall premise of CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN, jumbles it all up and comes at the story from a different angle. It also grows up both in the feel of the story and in the fact that the cast are obviously older. Fortunately though it doesn’t fall back purely on the old family morals’ cushion although of course lessons do end up being learned. What we end up with is some genuinely good humour and a very amusing story. All the characters are very well cast and the ‘plastics’ are all suitably hot looking which will definitely widen the film’s appeal to the male audience rather than only being of interest to teenage girls.
Overall MEAN GIRLS comes out as a very entertaining movie and well worth catching.
