Mean Girls: Rating: 3 stars

A naive teenager tries to fit in with the prissy bitches at her new high school.

Mean Girls (2004)
September 13, 2006 · PG-13 · Comedy
Reviewed September 13, 2006

It’s typical teen-girl movie fare, replete with the usual cliches: hot rich girls are evil, social pariahs are good, and the “nerdy” heroine is only a geek until she applies some lipgloss. Much of the movie is surprisingly clever, though, and I have to give props to Tina Fey for writing an amusing script. (The very first scene, with its send-ups of homeschooler stereotypes, made me squirt my soda right out my nose.) Most of the humor lies in the throwaway lines and in Lindsay Lohan’s credibly nuanced performance (credible for this type of movie and that type of actress, anyway). The whole thing drags on a bit too long, however, and everything wraps up in the happy-with-a-bow kind of ending that are apparently required of teen-girl movies by law — why does the heroine always have to learn a lesson and become a better person? Everyone was much funnier when they were evil…