Praised for its near-perfect screenplay, amazing comedy, beautiful message and outstanding cast, “Mean Girls” (2004) is mine and a lot of people’s favorite teen comedy. Directed by Mark Walters and written by Tina Fey, “Mean Girls” is an early 2000’s teen comedy about bullying, the high school social hierarchy and high school cliches. It also talks about the whole idea of putting women against each other and how we as a society should do the opposite. 

Fey’s screenplay for the film is inspired by Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 book “Queen Bees and Wannabes” and Fey’s own high school experience. In my opinion, it really shows. The dialogue is really realistic. Especially bullying. It really shows what modern bullying is now: talking behind the person’s back. They aren’t stealing lunch money or slamming people into lockers, they are doing what unfortunately most kids are doing in schools now. It makes viewers more impacted by the message and wanting to stop bullying when it’s what’s actually going on instead of being what went down back then. 

Another thing the film does really well is conveying the message to stop putting women against each other. The main focus of the movie is putting the protagonist Kady against the “antagonist” Regina. For example, Kady gives Regina weight-gaining granola bars instead of weight-loss granola bars. Anyway, as you know Kady faces her consequences for messing up just about everything until she infamously splits her spring-fling-queen crown and does her speech about how the women at the school should stick together. It was perfectly executed. 

According to Wikipedia, in its opening weekend, “Mean Girls” grossed over $24.4 million in the United States making it number one in the box office. After it closed, worldwide it made $129 million. 

On the Rotten Tomatoes website, 2004’s “Mean Girls” has an 83% from critics, and an 66% from the audience. To be honest, I’m surprised the audience is that low. I hear only good things about the movie. In addition, I’ve noticed some people mistakenly review this “Mean Girls” rather than the new movie. 

For the most part the critics ate this film up. The main highlights of the reviews are obviously Tina Fey’s amazing screenplay and Rachel Mcadams’ portrayal of Regina George. I’ve seen praise of all the cast, but Regina just had it in the bag. 

This “Mean Girls” is a remake of the original and the Broadway musical. This movie was a surprise for many and not really in a good way. The surprise wasn’t it being as good as the original, it’s the fact that it’s a musical. Other than a music note in the logo and second-long shots in the trailer, little to no marketing has been advertising this as a musical. So when a lot of people watched the film without even knowing it’s a musical, they don’t like the musical aspects or they flat-out don’t like the movie. And I’m sad to say that I think this movie is just mid. 

Once again Tina Fey wrote the screenplay and I mean, it’s good. The thing about this screenplay is that it’s pretty much beat to beat the original. And it’s funny because I found myself laughing more at the new jokes than the ones from the original because I heard the jokes from the original a ton. Now, the highlight for me is Karen. In my own watching, in the original and in this she’s my favorite character in the film. Her lines are funny and her delivery is even funnier. I also loved Regina and Damian’s portrayal.

Many things did not hit for me. The message was off, for the most part the songs were not really memorable and it felt inconsistent with the visuals. Also, I feel that Cady was miscasted. Do I think she did well in the movie? Yes. She was funny and her turn to the “mean girl” was pretty believable. But respectfully she was struggling in even the alto parts of the songs. I’ve seen comments upon comments on TikTok about this and even some videos and I’m sorry but I agree. 

According to Wikipedia, on opening weekend it made $28.65 million and topped the box office. As of writing it hasn’t reached its full run yet, but as of Feb. 2 it has grossed $84.6 million. 

On the Rotten Tomatoes website, 2024’s “Mean Girls” has a 70% from critics and a 62% from the audience. I’m surprised it’s that high on the critics’ side. From what I gathered for these reviews, the highlight is pretty much Renee Rapp’s portrayal of Regina George.

For a majority, 2004’s “Mean Girls” is just better. 2024’s take wasn’t bad at all though, but it has its flaws. In my opinion if they had to make a remake, just make a remake. For a lot of people, the best part of the movie is when no one is singing and it feels like a regular teen comedy. Not “High School Musical.” So, in short terms, I like the remake, but why would I watch that when I could just watch the better one?