Quick synopsis: A cinematic adaptation of the musical you haven’t seen, which is itself an adaptation of the film you’ve definitely seen, which is an adaptation of a book you probably haven’t read.

I get what they were going for, I really do. The original film is iconic, and the musical was very well regarded. With all that considered, there still didn’t seem to be that many people excited about this. It certainly didn’t feel like it warranted a cinema release, it felt more like something a streaming service would use in their early days to persuade people to subscribe. The trailer didn’t seem to do much to get people excited either. On the bright side; it didn’t hide the fact that it was a musical. I’ve seen people claim it did, but the trailer I saw featured the characters performing a professionally choreographed dance number in the middle of a canteen, so if you saw that and DIDN’T know it was a musical, that’s on you. My issue with the trailer was the song choice. Musicals have songs in them (shocking revelation, I know), so you’d think when it came to “songs we should have in the trailer” then you’d, you know, pick one of the ones you already have the rights to and which people who know the source material would recognise but which those who don’t can use to ascertain the type of musical stylings the film will contain. They picked an Olivia Rodrigo song. Now I love her music, but none of her songs are in the film, so why (again, for a musical) would you choose her?

So how are the songs? They’re okay. The best way you can describe them is “serviceable”. Very few of them can be described as memorable though. There are apparently 17 musical numbers in the film, without the list in front of me I can recall three. Even with the list in front of me, I can only recall small details about 8 of them (as in, where they were in the film, or who sang them, or any lines). That’s an INCREDIBLY low hit rate. It doesn’t feel like a musical, instead feels more like a film that’s occasionally interrupted by music videos. The opening two songs feel a bit too small and individual. Imagine if La La Land started with City Of Lights instead of Another Day Of Sun. The second song feels like a Sara Bareilles song, which is nice as she’s cool. The others feel interchangeable in terms of style. With the exception of some of Janice Imi’ike’s songs, none of them feel unique to the characters.

None of the issues are due to performance, everybody does a great job of portraying their characters, Some of them are vastly different from the original film but this actually helps as it means that the characters don’t feel like imitations of what we’ve seen before, they all feel like their own person unique to this adaptation. Some of them are overly sexualised, which is weird due to the ages of the characters. The performers aren’t helped though by how the teachers are played by Ashley Park, Jon Hamm, and Tina Fey. Having them (mainly Hamm and Park) as extended cameos does slightly overshadow the core cast. Oddly enough, I feel if they were in it more then it would be less of an issue as it would normalise them.

It being a musical means we don’t get that much time with the characters. If one character spends a three-minute song singing about themselves then it means there’s less cinematic space for other characters to be explored. The reason Mean Girls (the first film) is so revered is partly because of the side characters that people enjoy. That’s not present here. The main characters are the ONLY ones you’ll get to know stuff about, the only ones who are allowed quirks and personalities. I can’t help but feel that “only pay attention to the cool popular kids as none of the others matter” is the message this film wants to teach. That sums up my issues; the original film was aimed at the Janice Ians, at the Damiens, and at the Cady’s of the world. The 2024 iteration? It’s aimed at the Regina Georges.