Child: “I want Mean Girls [2024], mom.”

Parent: “We have Mean Girls [2004] at home.”

Consider this bouncy 2024 remake Mean Girls Plus, as the only additions from the popular high school comedy are the adaptations made to retrofit Tina Fey’s comedy for the Broadway stage. Twenty years later, the cast is more diverse, some of the jokes that have aged the worst have been removed (fewer fat jokes and no more teachers sleeping with underage Asian students), and the 97-minute original now becomes a 112-minute musical. The cast is winsome and charming but fail to disperse your memories of the original cast that featured future Oscar nominees Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried or even Lindsay Lohan during the height of her career (Lohan cameos as the mathlete judge). Renee Rapp (The Sex Lives of College Girls) has got the most command as this next generation’s Regina George, a role she played during the Broadway run. Your overall impression is going to hinge entirely upon your evaluation of the pop-heavy songs, which to my ears were pleasant but unmemorable melodic pap. There is the occasional snarky line (“This is modern feminism talking/ Watch me as I run the world in shoes I cannot walk in”) but most of the lyrics and jokes are mild additions from what Fey’s movie already established. The standout musical moment might be a goofy throwaway number about all the different sexy Halloween costumes a woman should be able to dress in (“If you don’t dress slutty, that is slut shaming us”). The staging features lots of long takes and tracking shots to better appreciate the nimble dance choreography with the occasional visual addition (phone screen inserts make for modern backup singers). The memorable 2004 lines that have stuck as Millennial memes are included but treated like returning victors, but when elevated and given space for applause, it feels so strange and artificial. The 2004 movie didn’t do this. Regardless, you can do worse than a slightly updated version of Mean Girls with all-right songs, though you could also simply re-watch the original.

Nate’s Grade: B-