“Mean Girls” (Paramount Pictures)
Lindsay Lohan takes on the “mean girls” of high school in her new film “Mean Girls.” This is a movie which should have had some sharp, satirical fun to it; especially since the screenplay was written by Tina Fey. But the humor in this movie is bland and the mean girls come off as more silly than scary, more dumb than daunting.
Cady Heron (Lohan) arrives at high school in her junior year fresh from Africa where she has been home schooled. She is out of her element and her league when she meets up with the three girls who form the clique known as “the Plastics.” Regina (Rachel McAdams), Karen (Amanda Seyfried), and Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) are the “in group” of the high school. What they say counts – about everything.
Cady hangs out with them just to get some information in order to make fun of them. But then she gets caught up in the whole social scene and soon is just as much a “mean girl” as they are. Her true friends are Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese) but they get left behind when she moves on up in status.
Lohan is cute and clever as Cady but it really isn’t a role that offers her as much chance to act as say her role in “Freaky Friday.” This movie isn’t as clever as that one either. In fact this movie makes the John Hughes films like “Pretty In Pink” look like classics. The role of Cady could have been played by Amanda Bynes, Hilary Duff or Anne Hathaway and it would have had the same effect.
It is good to see Lacey Chabert with a good role in a movie. She played the youngest daughter in the TV series “Party of Five” and showed she could act. Now she is taking roles like “Gretchen” to show how beautiful she has become.
A lot of the “Saturday Night Live” cast are in the film. Tina Fey plays the math teacher, Tim Meadows is the principal, Amy Poehler is Regina’s mom, and Ana Gasteyer is Cady’s. Poehler has the funniest moments as the mother who wants to be a friend to her daughter and her daughter’s friends. It is an act of pure desperation and Poehler plays it to the hilt.
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity and sexual situations.
“Mean Girls” is a film about the glossy side of life. Everyone and everything in these girls’ lives are neat and clean. They may have some rough spots but these are not tragedies but rather minor incidents. In short the movie is a lot of ado about nothing.
I scored “Mean Girls” a mean-ingless 4 out of 10.
