2008 Woodie Awards
Film Clips: "Mean Girls" Scarier Than "Van Helsing"
Why Tina Fey is better than Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolverine put together.
Michael Ordoña
Issue date: 5/12/04 Section: Valley Life
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"Mean Girls"
Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey
Dir. Mark Waters
***
"Mean Girls" is pretty much what you'd expect from a mainstream teen comedy adapted by Saturday Night Live's head writer and "Weekend Update" anchor Tina Fey: Nasty, smart fun that doesn't quite go all the way.
Set in a fragmented high school ruled with a lycra fist by a clique of rich, beautiful and ruthless girls, the film teases the viewer with the promise of absurd revenge on the level of the classic of the genre, 1989's "Heathers." Despite a sharp script and solid comic performances, this one doesn't quite get past second base.
Continuing this year's trend of revenge fantasies (exemplified by "Kill Bill Vol. 2," "Man on Fire," and others, but some might argue, kicked off by "The Passion of the Christ"), "Mean Girls" tells the story of home-schooled but brilliant, self-confident and gorgeous Cady (Lindsay Lohan), who has spent the last 12 years in Africa with her zoologist parents and now must brave the jungle of public school in Midwestern America.
Egged on by her new out-of-the mainstream buddies and her own longing for a boy manipulated by the Queen Bee Regina (Rachel McAdams), Cady becomes a kind of sleeper agent infiltrating the mean girls' terrorist cell. In acting like them in order to destroy them, however, she of course finds herself actually becoming like them ... and therein lies the moral, boys and girls.
The film has plenty of comparisons between the socialization of teenagers and wild apes, and lots of hip pop culture references. Fey's stamp is on the film in its snappy dialogue, embarrassing moments and not-so-subtle political messages (her script is adapted from Rosalind Wiseman's bestseller "Queen Bees and Wannabees"). Director Mark Waters ("Freaky Friday") keeps the action moving nicely, although it does bog down during the moral portion of the story.
Still, the film feels frustratingly restrained. One wishes that it would lose its inhibitions and take the plunge that "Heathers" took so boldly into the absurd, the extreme, to lift it far above the pack.
Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey
Dir. Mark Waters
***
"Mean Girls" is pretty much what you'd expect from a mainstream teen comedy adapted by Saturday Night Live's head writer and "Weekend Update" anchor Tina Fey: Nasty, smart fun that doesn't quite go all the way.
Set in a fragmented high school ruled with a lycra fist by a clique of rich, beautiful and ruthless girls, the film teases the viewer with the promise of absurd revenge on the level of the classic of the genre, 1989's "Heathers." Despite a sharp script and solid comic performances, this one doesn't quite get past second base.
Continuing this year's trend of revenge fantasies (exemplified by "Kill Bill Vol. 2," "Man on Fire," and others, but some might argue, kicked off by "The Passion of the Christ"), "Mean Girls" tells the story of home-schooled but brilliant, self-confident and gorgeous Cady (Lindsay Lohan), who has spent the last 12 years in Africa with her zoologist parents and now must brave the jungle of public school in Midwestern America.
Egged on by her new out-of-the mainstream buddies and her own longing for a boy manipulated by the Queen Bee Regina (Rachel McAdams), Cady becomes a kind of sleeper agent infiltrating the mean girls' terrorist cell. In acting like them in order to destroy them, however, she of course finds herself actually becoming like them ... and therein lies the moral, boys and girls.
The film has plenty of comparisons between the socialization of teenagers and wild apes, and lots of hip pop culture references. Fey's stamp is on the film in its snappy dialogue, embarrassing moments and not-so-subtle political messages (her script is adapted from Rosalind Wiseman's bestseller "Queen Bees and Wannabees"). Director Mark Waters ("Freaky Friday") keeps the action moving nicely, although it does bog down during the moral portion of the story.
Still, the film feels frustratingly restrained. One wishes that it would lose its inhibitions and take the plunge that "Heathers" took so boldly into the absurd, the extreme, to lift it far above the pack.
