The 2004 Imply Women was a cultural juggernaut that shifted the comedic panorama, proving that female-led comedies may obtain business and significant success. The film boasted nuanced characters, intelligent writing, and incisive observations about cliques, conformity, and the pursuit of recognition.
The film, satirizing social hierarchies and the absurdities tied to teenagedom, defied comparable comedy film stereotypes, which had beforehand usually reserved the very best and raunchiest jokes for the lads — as ladies offered the human snicker monitor or seemed on and gasped on the crudeness of their remarks. This time, the women have been coming in with the one-two punches. With out Imply Women, would we’ve got Bridesmaids, Simple A, The Duff, The Fringe of Seventeen, and even the musical splendor that’s Pitch Excellent?
Whereas the 2004 Imply Women stays a staple amongst its millennial fanbase, with many capable of quote the movie’s iconic strains, resembling “you’ll be able to’t sit with us, “on Wednesdays, we put on pink,” “that’s so fetch,” “boo you whore,” and “the restrict doesn’t exist,” the 2024 film musical primarily based on the Broadway musical primarily based on the unique film (received all that?) is not more than an uninspired victory lap. It depends on the widespread familiarity surrounding the unique to compensate for its lack of fully-fleshed characters and musical mediocrity.
Within the new film, Gretchen, Karen, Cady, and Regina really feel like caricatures: 2D, singe-quirk variations of their complicated predecessors. Cady’s transformation to the highest of the totem pole occurs with out a lot improvement. The place’s the sluggish boil? It’s been changed with music video montages and intermittent dialogue referencing traditional quotes to get a smirk out of its hungry-for-Lindsay viewers.
Regina George is not more than a “quintessential chief of the pack” and “dangerous bitch” whose prior latent vulnerability and insecurity fails to totally floor (regardless of Renee Rapp’s hypnotizing presence and voice).
Gretchen is the defeated sidekick whose second of reflection in her solo “What’s Mistaken With Me” suffers from a easy melodic construction and lyrics which are disappointingly generic and predictable. And whereas Karen has at all times been the Rose Nylund of the group, the OG Karen (like Rose) possessed emotional intelligence that exposed itself because the film progressed. Right here, her IQ and EQ are, sadly, on a good taking part in subject.
The film’s lack of narrative substance and failure to flesh out every character arc largely outcomes from the truth that it’s not a “musical” however extra of a film with music video moments — within the sense that the songs don’t serve the story, however moderately interrupt it; they usually appear to enhance or mirror on what has already been communicated in different methods. An excellent musical will use tune to drive the story and develop its characters; the music will each inform the story and paint the character’s internal monologues and emotional baggage.
![Mean Girls (2024)](https://thoughtcatalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Mean-Girls-2024.jpg?w=640)
The songs right here don’t solely really feel like listless diversions, however fail to stay as much as the Broadway model on account of dangerous singing, orchestral adjustments, lyric changes, weird tonal inconsistencies, and immemorability. A lot of the theatricality has been erased from the present and changed with poppy, talk-singing vocals that don’t fairly “sing,” however moderately “enunciate with a little bit of melody.” The actress taking part in Cady Heron, Angourie Rice, is clearly combating the singing element, and her supply lacks all of the DRAMATICS we wish in a musical…in all probability as a result of her vocal vary can’t convey them. As varied characters lend their pipes to the film musical, the one one who manages to rise to the event is Rapp — who performed Regina on Broadway, and even her moments endure from some cinematic selections.
Some musical moments in Imply Women really feel like they’re ripped proper out of Excessive Faculty Musical — with all of the gymnastics-infused choreography and wide-eyed expressions akin to the Disney traditional. Others supply up tinted crimson lenses to convey a way of thriller and brooding contemplation whereas others function slow-mo results and the breaking of the fourth wall in a means that’s paying homage to musical moments in animated Pixar and DreamWorks movies (besides nowhere close to as satisfying because the “I Want a Hero” second in Shrek 2; look it up).
![Angourie Rice in Mean Girls (2024)](https://thoughtcatalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Cady-Mean-Girls.jpg?w=640)
Because the musical jumps from one truncated tune to the following — leaving out developmental lyrics from the Broadway bash — there’s no thread connecting the musicality. The songs play as music movies belonging to totally different artists, belonging to totally different genres, belonging to totally different tales. It’s tonal whiplash that, with out the prevailing Imply Women, can be an utter mess. (The viewers is aware of the story so there’s forgiveness in place for unfastened threads and poor connections because the 2004 hit has fortified such threads.)
And, when the ultimate tune performs and the film involves a detailed, not a single quantity is left buzzing round in your mind…possibly “Apex Predator” accomplishes this, however how will you make a film musical and fail to present us a few earworms…particularly when you’re not going to reinvent the unique story in any significant means? When all are burned and betrayed, we’d’ve been higher off by no means assembly the plastics once more.