Mean Girls Review

Bottom-Line: Go rent Mean Girls, pop some popcorn, grab a bag of M&M's, a can of Cherry Coke, settle in and prepared to be entertained.   

I am not a die-hard Lindsay Lohan fan of that I can surely attest, but I am a red-blooded American male so she does not completely escape my notice, my discerning eye if you will.  So I have watch with morbid fascination as Lindsay morphed from a beautiful, vibrant, shapely auburn haired young woman into a scrawny blonde haired teenaged boy with awful skin.  At least she has admitted that she sort of has a problem with Bulimia and drugs, that's the first step towards gaining a stronger character.  But I digress...we are here to discuss a movie. 

Written by Rosalind Wiseman with screenplay by Tina Fey and directed by Mark Waters (Freaky Friday, Just Like Heaven), Mean Girls is you run of the mill teenaged fair, about love and war in hallways of a typical American high school.  There is nothing new here, no new revelation(s); no new grown is sown, nor illuminating moments realized; Mean Girls is worthy of a rainy Sunday afternoon, not and Oscar statuette.

Lindsay portrays Cady Heron a heretofore home schooled sixteen-year-old teen who has traveled extensively in Africa and other exotic places. When asked where she's from she impulsively answers Africa, not realizing that White people are not normally associated with the dark land to the Southeast, especially in the highly pedestrian mind of the average (and perhaps above average) American teenager.  Cady is being thrust into the jungle of an upscale high school in Evanston, IL where her mother has accepted a tenured position with Northwestern University.  

My Viewpoint

I have to admit Mean Girls was more than mildly entertaining to watch.  For those uninitiated in the world of suburban high school girl drama (raising my hand), Mean Girls will be slightly jarring.  I thought high school was a place one went to learn; silly boy, high school is but a social club where very little formal learning takes place, and lessons in real life take place at a frightful pace, and with sometime damning consequences.  This is a course I had already learned somewhat from my seventeen year old daughter, but it's nice to get the condensed version.

Each of the actresses plays their part convincingly well; Lindsay Lohan really can act if she puts her mind to it.  And it looks at though each had fun with their respective parts.  Screen writer and Saturday Night Live alum Tina Fey gave her herself a part in the movie as a teacher of all things, and she did a remarkably good job; who knew she could do something more then read the quasi-news?

Got a free Friday night coming up (I don't now that Sci-Fi Friday is back), go rent Mean Girls, pop some popcorn, grab a bag of M&M's, a can of Cherry Coke, settle in and prepared to be entertained.