REVIEW | A confetti bomb of teenage angst, Mean Girls reboot is fun but not as fetch as the original

New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called 'The Plastics', ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina's ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), she finds herself prey in Regina's crosshairs.

Few iconic pop culture classics define an era as much as Mean Girls did in the early 2000s. Etched forever into every millennial's brain as one-liners and legendary outfits, the influence of the teen comedy still reverberates through mainstream culture today. In 2024, it's reborn as an onscreen musical adaptation for the social media era of influencers and cancel culture. Cady, Regina, Karen, Gretchen and Janis have become today's Gen Z teenage girls, yet their millennial roots are still visible at their core.

For the casual filmgoer, the new Mean Girls might look like just a remake of the original at face value, but it's actually based on the Broadway musical that's also based on the 2004 film.