09 February 2011

Movie Review: Mean Girls 2 (Actually, no, the plastics aren't back)

Photo courtesy of Google Images


If you've watched the original Mean Girls (Lindsay Lohan), you probably know that it's the best quotable movie ever made. Tina Fey's version of Mean Girls is brilliant and pure genius, so I wasn't thrilled to hear about the sequel. I finally got to watch it on DVD yesterday and it was a complete waste of time!

Anyway, the film's star is Meaghan Martin who plays Jo Mitchell, Lindsay's (Cady) counterpart. She's a boyish girl who grew up with her father who is a NASCAR mechanic, so they tend to move around a lot. She ends up at North Shore where she's the ONLY standout: rides a red Vespa to school (and on one scene, she rides it inside the school halls), attending shop class (where she's the only girl), wears chucks and boots as opposed to wedges and sling-backs, and surprise surprise: she's the only virgin. 


Jo meets Abby Hanover (Jennifer Stone) and helps her through Queen Bee and head of the Plastics, Mandi Weatherly's (Maiara Walsh) tactics to bring Abby down. Abby lives right in front of Mandi's house and her parents tend to go overboard with spoiling her. She has no friends: Mr. Hanover (Donn Lamkin) offers money to Jo in exchange of her being friends with Abby.

Obviously, the feisty Jo catches Mandi's eye, but she turns down the plastics' invitation to join their little group over non-fat, no sugar, Raspberry Frappuccinos. North Shore's number 1 girl then comes up with stupid and elementary pranks to bring Jo down - messing up her father's business and taking away her chance of going to her dream school, Carnegie Mellon. Instead of bringing Jo down, Mandi fuels up a fight between the Plastics and the Anti-Plastics -- this is the part where Jo becomes one of them: dressing like a hoe, sucking down on non-fat drinks despite her skinny legs, and putting her real friends down. Of course, at the end of the film, Jo redeems herself.

The good:
- Mean Girls 2 emanates the original film's values.

The bad:
- First of all, their wardrobe is tacky.
- Mandi Weatherly wasn't as convincing as Regina George. In other words, she was lesser than a second-rate, trying hard copy cat.
- There wasn't much humor in the film - a mom trying to be cool, a dad who doesn't know how to keep his child grounded, inappropriate gym teachers.
- Chastity Meyer (Claire Holt) plays one of Mandi's sidekicks in the film - she plays the dumb one, as opposed to Karen of the original. Claire played the role with little execution, or maybe it was because of the script, I really don't care. She was dumb in all the wrong places and it wasn't funny at all.
- Hope Plotkin (Nicole Gale Anderson) wasn't like Gretchen of the original. Most of the time, she just faded into the background. Very forgettable.

Overall, the film didn't work. It lacked humor. The plastics were crueler in the sequel - taking things a tad bit too far, and yet coming up with lame pranks. A lot of scenes just made me go Ugh. There was only one memorable line, "To win the race, you have to be in the race" - which was only so because it was repeated multiple times in the film. Many scenes were far-fetched and unbelievable (ie: putting glue on the Vespa seat so Jo would get stuck to it, throwing paintball at a god damn good looking car). I hope the title Mean Girls 2 doesn't draw you in because I think it's hilariously pathetic. I reiterate, it was a complete waste of time. And, it was better when they were trying to make fetch happen.

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