"Mean Girls" had a lot of potential.
Ten minutes into it I was filled with hope as that brand of witty playfulness Tina Fey exhibits on SNL every week was very much in evidence throughout her sharp-eyed script.
Story was just starting to take root. The venomous back-and-forth between Cady, Plastics and the weirdo twosome (semi-goth chick and the husky gay dude) was developing nicely. Side, throwaway gags were all delivered with bite and at the right moments ('You come from Africa? How come you're white?' or teacher's 'I'm a pusher' monologue).
So, it was all moving along like one of the better episodes of 'The Simpsons' ...... when it suddenly pretty much came to a screeching halt somewhere around the 3/4 mark. From there on - it was a different film.
So, what happened?
Well, it's hard to say. They must have tested this thing to death and probably had 7 alternate endings on offer. How else to explain the forcedly feel good, uplifting finale? Girls workshop in school gym and Cady's queen-of-the-prom speech were not only uninspired, sub par scenes individually but didn't really fit with the rest of the film, either.
To be fair, this sudden shift couldn't completely negate all of the earlier satisfactory elements but it was very disappointing nonetheless.
After all the fun and extremely exaggerated backstabbing & cattiness, they turned it down a couple of notches (probably under studio directives), watering the movie down to a level of your run-of-the-mill teen flick in the process.
I'm still tempted to recommend it because of Lindsay Lohan's appeal (there's definitely something about that girl and it goes beyond the mere physical), but almost everything else was wasted by the end.
Ten minutes into it I was filled with hope as that brand of witty playfulness Tina Fey exhibits on SNL every week was very much in evidence throughout her sharp-eyed script.
Story was just starting to take root. The venomous back-and-forth between Cady, Plastics and the weirdo twosome (semi-goth chick and the husky gay dude) was developing nicely. Side, throwaway gags were all delivered with bite and at the right moments ('You come from Africa? How come you're white?' or teacher's 'I'm a pusher' monologue).
So, it was all moving along like one of the better episodes of 'The Simpsons' ...... when it suddenly pretty much came to a screeching halt somewhere around the 3/4 mark. From there on - it was a different film.
So, what happened?
Well, it's hard to say. They must have tested this thing to death and probably had 7 alternate endings on offer. How else to explain the forcedly feel good, uplifting finale? Girls workshop in school gym and Cady's queen-of-the-prom speech were not only uninspired, sub par scenes individually but didn't really fit with the rest of the film, either.
To be fair, this sudden shift couldn't completely negate all of the earlier satisfactory elements but it was very disappointing nonetheless.
After all the fun and extremely exaggerated backstabbing & cattiness, they turned it down a couple of notches (probably under studio directives), watering the movie down to a level of your run-of-the-mill teen flick in the process.
I'm still tempted to recommend it because of Lindsay Lohan's appeal (there's definitely something about that girl and it goes beyond the mere physical), but almost everything else was wasted by the end.