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Monday, August 01, 2005

Quick, Dirty & Late: Mean Girls

Here's a quick and dirty movie review. Despite being quick and dirty, this review of Mean Girls is, quite obviously, late.

The movie works as a high school comedy. There's a lunch room poll straight out of Heathers, a lunchroom map eerily reminiscent of Clueless, and bad mall jobs hearkening back to Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

There's even a plot device -- Lindsey Lohan joins the Plastics only to become one herself -- borrowed from Swing Kids (and every undercover agent movie ever filmed). It's neither surprise nor shame than Mean Girls is so derivative. It is, after all, a sex-free high school comedy. Thank goodness there's no pie fucking, public sex, or zealous shaving.

Mean Girls disappoints for two reasons. First, all the characters are redeemed at the end. I demand karmic retribution in my comedies, dammit! Second, and probably informing the first failure, Tina Fey shared a positive message which she earnestly believed in. This is almost always a mistake. Better to let your hopes and dreams slip through cracks in your well-hidden heart-shaped box than to construct your story around them.

Still, it's funny and enjoyable within the strict confines of its familiar formula.

3 Comments:

Wifeypoo and I have debated getting this movie for a while. We had it in our hand the other night and we went with Donnie Darko instead. I'm a big fan of coming of age/high school films. Heathers and Rushmore are my favorites in the genre. i have a bad habit of relating all other films in that genre to those 2 classics. Not much else comes close. Whale Rider was good, but it wasn't a comedy.

cp

By Anonymous, at 8:26 AM