Mean Girls (2024)

Director: Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr

Cast: Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auli’i Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey

Have I Seen it Before: Well… Is it even really an appropriate question in this context?

Did I Like It: I had been on the fence about seeing the movie at all, ultimately. How different could it be? Thankfully, it is different enough that although one takes in the same story* with almost no variation, there are enough new Tina Fey-isms to make one feel like they haven’t been cheated by the experience. I laughed with some regularity.

Where the film exceeds expectations is in its casting. Although all of the new plastics and the other students at North Shore evoke all of their predecessors, but never once feel like they are doing an impression of Lindsay Lohan or any of the others. That adds more to the experience of what essentially is watching the same movie again. But that’s not really what I mean about the casting, what I mean to say is I am unwaveringly impressed by the fact that Rice absolutely looks like she could be the daughter of Jenna Fischer, and Rapp absolutely looks like she could be the daughter of Busy Phillips. So few movies ignore such considerations—including the original Mean Girls (2004)—and it has a nasty habit of taking me out of the film.

Unfortunately, this will end up being something of a mixed review. The songs offered here are fine, but there is not one that burrows into the mind and soul like a great musical. This might be forgiven, if it weren’t for the fact that the only reason I did break down and watch it was because Lora and I had binged all (so far) of Girls5Eva and I was struck by how great Jeff Richmond’s music complemented the comedy of his spouse. Here, the music isn’t doing much beyond giving the characters an excuse to sing. The crew involved here can do (and has done) much better in other work.

*Parts of the plot—indeed, some characters—are pared down, and a few parts are expanded, but if you’ve seen the original Mean Girls, you’re taking this in as an exercise in cinematic comfort food.

Moana (2016)

Director: Ron Clements, John Musker

Cast: Auli’I Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison

Have I Seen It Before?: No.

Did I like it?: Yes.

After the acquisition of Pixar by Disney, and the pollination of creative executives into Disney Animation, the Mouse House has lifted itself out of its slump and produced insanely watchable movies, whereas before they were content to churn out direct-to-video sequels and make just enough money to make sure the shareholders stay happy.

Moana happily fits in this Disney renaissance. The script is perfectly crafted, to the point where it could legitimately be used in examples for books about writing screenplays. The setting is new and interesting. I cannot think of any film that immerses itself in Polynesian culture and mythology like we see here. The cast is both filled and headlined with performers representative of the cultures depicted.

And yet, something about the movie bothers me. It feels like such a story should not only include representation in front of the camera, but also behind. This story should have come out of the cultural marrow of someone from that culture. Pixar isn’t necessarily blind to this, as their recent short Bao (2018) brilliantly showed. Am I to truly believe the three people best qualified to both write and direct the tale of Maui (Johnson) and Moana (Cravalho) are three white guys from Burbank who had sufficient seniority in the Walt Disney Corporation.

By all indications, the writing of the film went through several hands before it reached its final version, credited to Disney in-house writer Jared Bush. At one point, even Taika Waititi took a pass at it that was apparently largely abandoned. It’s heartening that the film credited a large team of cultural advisors, but one of them didn’t have a burning story to tell on their own? It’s a fine film. The music keeps occasionally running its way through my head, even as I type this a few days after first watching the film.

I just can’t help think that there was an even better film somewhere in there, and the corporate realities of modern film-making robbed us of something that could have been not just special, but transcendent.

Why in the hell wouldn’t they go with a script originally written by Taika Waititi? Why?