Mean Girls
dir. Mark S. Waters

So I saw this last night and I had a lot of fun and enjoyed myself and stuff. And Lindsey Lohan is so totally hot and so is Rachel McAdams.

But this movie is still getting to be pretty overrated. Judging it as a teen movie, it had several flaws. Beware: SPOILERS!

1/You've always got to have really good teacher characters. Examples: Wallace Shawn/Twink Caplain in Clueless, Jeffrey Jones in Ferris Bueller. Here, Tina Fey and Tim Meadows left a lot to be desired. I still like Fey but she can do better than this.

2/Good parent characters can help too! Examples: Dan Hedaya in Clueless (the absolute holy grail of hilarious father/daughter relationships), Larry Miller in 10 Things I Hate About You. Neil Flynn, who's just so great, was totally wasted as Cady's dad. Regina's mom half made up for it, but only half.


3/Something that happens a lot in these movies: totally bland object of desire characters like whatever-his-name-was here really suck. Where was the Emilio Estevez, the Paul Rudd, the Heath Ledger, the Christian Slater?

4/The two 'cool uncool' characters, ESPECIALLY the irritating 'I'm a goth but not in a scary way' girl, just got on my nerves. These people do not exist.

5/The happy ending: yawn. I was so happy when Regina got hit by the bus--shoulda been killed. The whole thing where Tina Fey lectures the kids? That sucked. Lindsey's speech wasn't THAT grating so I was OK with it but still, happy endings suck. This isn't real life--I know that Regina and them are all horrible people, but it's funny! No need to moralize.


STILL! The script had so many funny lines and situations that I laughed the whole way through, and I found Lohan an appealing lead and McAdams was so damn traditionally gorgeous as Regina that I couldn't help but despise her/love her. Wonderful.

It doesn't enter that echelon of super-classic teen movies for me, Rebel Without a Cause, Heathers, Clueless, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, etc. But I still liked it a lot in a year which has been mostly fairly unfunny so far.

*** 1/2