I adore the hell out of Mean Girls but nearly everyone swears up and down this is better, the usual reasoning being that it came first and Mean Girls wouldn't exist without it. Both of those things are true. But it's also true that this film blows chunks.
This is one of the most muddled scripts I've ever seen in an enduringly popular movie. Some of the awful straight-to-video garbage the RLM crew watches on Best of the Worst is more coherent. It would've been so simple to clean up I can only conclude that the people who green-lit these decisions didn't care one bit about the film they were making. I'd like to say they underestimated their audience but this movie's reputation as some kind of campy classic may indicate that they were actually right on the money even if the real money wasn't present at the box office.
The film wants a protagonist unwittingly fooled into becoming a serial killer by her psycho boyfriend BUT SHE'S TALKED INTO THE VERY FIRST MURDER WITH THE LIGHTEST PRODDING AFTER PROVIDING THE FLIMSIEST POSSIBLE PROTEST. "That'll kill her! *shrugs* Oh well, whatever!" She also writes that she wants to do it in her diary before that scene even happens. So later on we're supposed to believe she isn't cold-blooded and is disgusted with the actions of her and especially her boyfriend? Why? She seemed cool with such actions when she agreed to do the very first one on little more than a whim. Unbelievably sloppy writing.
I could write more about the sloppy scripting, the jilting pacing, the stilted performances by every actor, the awkward dialogue, the confused messaging; the pathetic attempts to appeal to teens as REAL people with like FEELINGS, man who don't like being patronized by adults and the MEDIA, who hate the FAKE popular kids, etc. But I'm not wasting another second of my life talking or thinking about this garbage.
Mean Girls is endlessly quotable and legitimately funny. It's a work of art compared to this lowest common denominator slop. People need to take off the nostalgia goggles and see this film for what it is so they can leave it in the past where it belongs.
This is one of the most muddled scripts I've ever seen in an enduringly popular movie. Some of the awful straight-to-video garbage the RLM crew watches on Best of the Worst is more coherent. It would've been so simple to clean up I can only conclude that the people who green-lit these decisions didn't care one bit about the film they were making. I'd like to say they underestimated their audience but this movie's reputation as some kind of campy classic may indicate that they were actually right on the money even if the real money wasn't present at the box office.
The film wants a protagonist unwittingly fooled into becoming a serial killer by her psycho boyfriend BUT SHE'S TALKED INTO THE VERY FIRST MURDER WITH THE LIGHTEST PRODDING AFTER PROVIDING THE FLIMSIEST POSSIBLE PROTEST. "That'll kill her! *shrugs* Oh well, whatever!" She also writes that she wants to do it in her diary before that scene even happens. So later on we're supposed to believe she isn't cold-blooded and is disgusted with the actions of her and especially her boyfriend? Why? She seemed cool with such actions when she agreed to do the very first one on little more than a whim. Unbelievably sloppy writing.
I could write more about the sloppy scripting, the jilting pacing, the stilted performances by every actor, the awkward dialogue, the confused messaging; the pathetic attempts to appeal to teens as REAL people with like FEELINGS, man who don't like being patronized by adults and the MEDIA, who hate the FAKE popular kids, etc. But I'm not wasting another second of my life talking or thinking about this garbage.
Mean Girls is endlessly quotable and legitimately funny. It's a work of art compared to this lowest common denominator slop. People need to take off the nostalgia goggles and see this film for what it is so they can leave it in the past where it belongs.