Mean Girls          3 stars

Twenty years after watching high school girls battle for dominance in their pack in Mean Girls, the movie is remade in musical form with the same title, but this time it is updated for Gen Z to include the new weapon of social media and cell phones used in the art of put downs. Mean Girls is a movie based on a Broadway musical based on a movie based on a book. The same comedy genius, Tina Fey is again behind the writing for the film, but while funny, the magic of the original movie starring Lindsay Logan as Cady Heron, the homeschooled girl raised in Africa and transplanted to North Shore High School doesn’t quite carry through. We get almost exactly the same story with a group of high school mean girls called the Plastics who are determined to be feared by most while maintaining their exclusive club, only with the musical numbers from the stage production transferred to the big screen. There are some very well performed numbers like the emotional “What’s Wrong with Me” and an elaborately choreographed number involving what seems like hundreds of students in the school hallways. There are also times when the songs make too much use of the students’ cell phones, so you end up with a montage of TikTok like videos. Tina Fey and Tim Meadows do a good job reprising their roles from the first film as Ms. Norbury and Mr. Duvall. (I really enjoy seeing Tina Fey as a Calculus teacher.) The cameo roles of Jenna Fischer, Busy Phillips and Jon Hamm were barely noticeable. But be sure to watch closely and you will see Lindsay Lohan as the Mathletes moderator. Angourie Rice does an admirable job in the Lindsay Lohan role of Cady, the girl who forgets who her friends are when doing the full mean girl act. The best performance of the film must go to Renée Rapp as Regina George. She really makes mean look good as she instills fear with a stare throughout the school as she walks through the hallways. She can certainly sing, never missing a note. Rapp is continuing the role from the Broadway production, and we can see why. She is perfect in the role first performed by Rachel McAdams. (She has been making the TV talk show circuit for the past year or so and recently even made an appearance on Saturday Night Live.) If you really like musicals, you should see Mean Girls. Otherwise, I recommend going back and watching the original starring Lindsay Lohan with its message of staying true to your friends.