The Popkorn Junkie :: Mean Girls

Never in a million years would I have planned on enjoying a film like "Mean Girls". For starters, Lindsay Lohan is one of my least favorite young actresses working today. Secondly, the trailers make this film look like just another "Confessions of A Teenage Drama Queen". Lastly, it has Saturday Night Live written all over it, and that usually proves to be disastrous. However, "Mean Girls" was one of the nicest surprises I have had at the theatres all year long, and it deserves accolades for being quite possibly the best film Lindsay Lohan has ever had anything to do with; and that includes "Freaky Friday".

The story centers around Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan). After being home schooled in Africa for years and years, Cady moves with her family to Toronto and enrolls in a new high school. She immediately makes friends with two outsiders, Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese), who teach Cady the rules of high school, i.e. cliques and who not to associate with. The most popular girls in school are Regina (Rachel McAdams), Gretchen (Lacey Chabert), and Karen (Amanda Seyfried) -- also known as the 'mean girls' -- and begin in somewhat of a 'sparring match' with Cady. This is where I end divulging crucial plot information. I could just post a SPOILER tag, but everyone should enjoy this movie as much as I did.

What makes this film difference from all the rest is how intelligently the subject matter is handled. High school is a very rough and difficult environment and writer Tina Fey and director Mark S. Waters treat it as such. "Mean Girls" also manages to possess a social conscience and actually shows a decent portrayal of high school life and what young girls go through therein. Tina Fey is one of the most humorous cast members on SNL (she is certainly the most intelligent), and she brings that humor to the big screen, with a little bit of love and affection. She also co-stars as a teacher in the film, which fellow SNL alumni Tim Meadows carries out a role as the high school principal.

There are so many films being released these days, aimed at teen audiences, which focus on crude humor and sexual innuendos, while doing nothing to give people the slightest glimpse into how teenagers really act and react. "Mean Girls" breaks the mold and sets a new standard, proving that a teen oriented film can be humorous and entertaining without the crudeness and lame attempts at toilet humor. The film is rated PG-13 for a reason, however -- this is not your typical Lindsay Lohan vehicle. It looks as if she is growing up and taking some riskier roles than normal, much like Alison Lohman has started doing. Of course, Lohan also has her mediocre singing career in the works -- the soundtrack is a perfect example.

-- Billy Ray ( 3 out of 4 pops )

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Matt ( 2 out of 4 pops )

Teen movies tend to fall into two categories. The first is the dopey teen comedy that contains the expected quota of gratuitous sex gags, a predictable romance and caters to those with an I.Q. below 12. The second is the smarter, anti-teen comedy that tries to go against all the clichés, but manages to be just as dull. "Mean Girls" falls into the second category. The film is written by Tina Fey, who most people know as the head writer on "Saturday Night Live" and co-anchor on the "Weekend Update" sketch. So I guess people expect a better-than-average teen movie coming from such a source. That is unless anyone has watched "SNL" lately. I think the show has reached an all-time low, as far as writing is concerned, and I'm pretty sure Tina is to blame for that. The main character in this story is Cady (Lindsay Lohan), an intelligent but naive teen (Lindsay Lohan), who has spent her last 12 years in Africa. Since she has only been home-schooled previous to her move to America, this is her first taste of what it's like to walk through the halls of an actual high school. That's when she discovers the multitude of cliques that populate the cafeteria. At first, she befriends two outcasts. One is an eccentric girl, who wears a ton of eye shadow and is rumored to be a lesbian. The other is her flamboyant, heavy-set gay friend. Both of them are highly cynical about high school in general, and want to steer her away from the other cliques, who are nothing but trouble. One day she gets invited to sit with the Plastics, the most elite clique in the school which (as you can imagine) is composed of beautiful girls who look and act like Barbie dolls. At first, the two outcasts disapprove of Cady befriending these evil girls, but then they allow her to infiltrate their clique in hopes of bringing it down. As you can imagine, tons of jealousy and backstabbing ensues, and it eventually gets to the point where everyone in the school turns on each other. The movie is far from awful, but it's nothing special. It isn't fully engaging, as I found my attention drifting at various moments. I'll give the movie brownie points for making me laugh out loud in spots. Since Tina Fey is the co-star and writer, many SNL stars of the past and present pop up, including Tim Meadows who's hilarious as the principal. Though the writing is sharper than the average teen movie, it still doesn't have much depth. Most of it does revolve around jealousy and backstabbing, as you can expect from a story involving teenage girls (if it were about boys, it would revolve around sex). I love the concept of capturing the horrors of high school, since it can be the most horrific period in one's life. Unfortunately, the movie is so heavy-handed that it fails to capture those horrors in a realistic manner, unlike Todd Solondz's much superior "Welcome to the Dollhouse." Instead, the movie spends just as much time poking fun at the geeks and outcasts as it does teaching you to accept them for who they are. And finally, I had a problem accepting Lohan's character. She lived in Africa all those years, yet she doesn't have an accent? Plus, she's totally oblivious to any pop culture references, which is not true of people from other countries. Therefore, the movie's not as smart as it aspires to be.