It’s only been 20 years since we first met the and the kids at North Shore High School, but original writer Tina Fey and new directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. have brought back the iconic story of the Plastics and the animalistic ways in which high school girls can treat one other — this time with music.

And this time around, it doesn’t feel as special or as iconic as it once did. Technically, this isn’t a remake, but rather an adaptation of the 2017 Broadway show, which was an adaptation of the film, which itself was inspired by the Rosalind Wiseman book “Queen Bees and Wannabes.” It comes complete with dance breaks and spontaneous singing to accompany the same story.

And I do mean the same story. This musical follows nearly beat for beat the events that happen in the 2004 film. They did thankfully cut the Coach Carr-student relationship as well as some pretty racist “jokes,” and added songs to varying rates of success.

That is part of my main issue with this musical. They pop in all those iconic moments from the original film, such as Glenn Coco, fetch, “she doesn’t even go here.” But they feel more like carbon copies rather than something fresh. Luckily, the cast does their best to differentiate themselves from the non-musical film, but for a couple of exceptions, they don’t really rise to give the audience something more.

Joining original cast members Fey and Tim Meadows, who reprise their roles as Ms. Norbury and Mr. Duvall, respectively, is an entirely new class.

Angourie Rice plays formerly home-schooled Cady Heron who spent most of her youth in Kenya with her researcher mother (Jenna Fischer), is thrown into the foreign world of American high school and must quickly learn to navigate not only her studies, but also love, friendships and, yes, even enemies. Side note: these two as mother and daughter is perfect casting.

Helping her along are Janis and Damian (Auli’i Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey), art kids on the fringes of most cliques, but Cady is soon scooped up by ultimate mean girl

Regina George (Reneé Rapp) who enters the picture with an uninspired, but torchy song reminding everyone that she’s a big deal.

Janis and Damian decide Cady’s being a part of the Plastics would grant them sweet revenge on Regina, the three of them conspire in the downfall of the queen bee. But when you cut the head off the snake, another takes its place, and Cady soon finds out popularity is intoxicating.

Rice is honestly one of the weaker performers in the cast. Granted, she isn’t given a lot to work with. All of her songs sound the same and even now, having just walked out of the theater, I can’t remember a single one. And her voice just doesn’t show the strength that the others’ do.

There are some small changes to characterizations to bring them into this decade (for example Bebe Wood’s Gretchen Wieners when she’s given the song “What’s Wrong with Me?”), but there are only two vocalists that stand out: Rapp and Cravalho. Both not only nail their characters, but also do a lot vocally to make their songs the more interesting moments of the entire film.

New shows to fill cold winter nights

Another hit against this movie-musical is the mush-mouth that comes when actors can’t convincingly lip sync with their vocal tracks, putting distance between the emotions put into the singing and the acting. Even Rapp falls victim to it when syncing her vocals, whereas Cravalho does eventually pull it it off during the “I’d Rather Be Me” number.

(I will also say that while Rapp clearly is a great singer, she dips too much into pop articulations, which makes it hard to understand what she’s actually singing)

While it’s not the worst movie musical ever made, “Mean Girls” falls into the realm of decidedly average, a film where musical breaks don’t feel exciting or impactful.

Further the music and vocals weren’t well-mixed, meaning the vocals were way louder than the background track, giving it the feel of a karaoke night, which could have been an individual theater issue. But dance numbers were definitely not shot well, relying mostly on “uncut” continuous shooting, and you get something that could have used another semester of prep.

Despite all that’s wrong here, there is still something fun about this musical and its potential to turn a whole new generation on to wearing pink on Wednesdays. It reminds us in a whole new way that calling someone names and putting others down does not make you better.

In a world of social media flooding our lives, it’s as good a reminder now as it was in 2004.

More information

‘Mean Girls’ (2024)

112 minutes

Rated PG-13 for sexual material, strong language, and teen drinking