Mean Girls (2004)

Summary: After being home schooled in Africa for years, Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) joins the junior class of North Shore public high school. She initially makes friends with two outsiders, Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damien (Daniel Franzese), but, when she picked up by the Plastics, the most popular girls in school, they convince her to join them in order to make fun of them. When the Queen Bee, Regina (Rachel McAdams), gets back together with her ex just to spite Cady, the three of them plot to take the Plastics down.

To be honest, I never chalked this movie up to the lame excuses for flicks that people like Hilary Duff and the Olsen twins try to pander off on unsuspecting 12 year-olds who don't know the difference between good and truly crap.

Mind you, Lohan was pretty much the deciding factor. Of all the reigning teen queens, Lohan appears to be the only one with any talent or actual box office pull. Basically, she's the only one worth watching.

And I did enjoy watching her. She's such a comical little sweetheart. Plus, she looks and acts like a teen, which makes her movies all the more credible.

Credibility was needed for such an obvious plot. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Tina Fey's screenplay from start to finish, but it was clear what was going to happen and when from the get-go. I must tell you, though, that I found many of the commercials and other descriptions that I read about this film somewhat misleading.

Nonetheless, it was laugh-out-loud funny and nice mental distraction at that.

Most of all, I'd have to say that I enjoyed McAdams and Tim Meadows as the principle the most. McAdams is crazy talented, even if she doesn't always make the right filmatic choices, and I'd watch it all again for Meadows to announce that he "didn't leave the south side for this", his reaction to the riot in progress in his hallways.

I'd have to agree with some critics who were hailing this movie as the Heathers of the next generation. Surely with the biting satirical edge of Heathers (and death), Mean Girls presents high school girls is the truly evil vixens we all know them to be without the slightest hint of remorse.