Ubiquitous teen queen Lindsay Lohan stars as a girl raised in the African bush who discovers that life in an American high school is fraught with far more peril than anything she ever encountered in the jungle. Penned by Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey, “Mean Girls” plays out much like the “Weekend Update” segments Fey co-hosts with Jimmy Fallon — there’s some funny stuff up front, but as things move along, the laughs are harder and harder to come by. The cast is awash with not-ready-for-prime-time-players who are apparently not ready for big movies either. As the sad-sack math teacher who serves as the film’s moral compass, Fey doesn’t come correct with the acerbic wit she employs to great effect on SNL’s mock newscasts. Tim Meadows was awfully good in the underrated “The Ladies Man,” but his talents don’t jibe with this she-stuff. (The more feminate Fallon might have been a better option). Ana Gasteyer and Amy Poehler are capable TV sketch comedians, but neither possesses an appreciable big screen presence. Lohan is typically pleasing as the fish out of water under attack by mini-skirt-wearing land sharks, but you get the sense she’s on cruise control here. This, no doubt, is a result of her having played an almost identical role in the recent “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.”
The spotlight shines on Rachel McAdams, who is wickedly entertaining as Regina George, the school’s manipulative queen bee and foil to good-girl Cady Heron (Lohan). Though “The Hot Chick” was an abomination, the handful of moviegoers who saw it will remember McAdams. She’s got “it,” and as the movie’s baddest bad girl she flaunts it for all its worth. Lacey Chabert (Claudia from the late Fox drama “Party of Five”) and newcomer Amanda Seyfried complete The Plastics, the superficial A-list girl clique whose leadership Cady and Regina tussle over. (Rated PG-13 for sexual content, language and some teen partying. Running time: 93 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 30, 2004. Read the original PDF.