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The Ruthless New Mean Girls Knows Better Than to Try and Make Fetch Happen
A pretty good remake proves the Plastics will never die.
Directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., making their feature-length debut, kick things off with Janis ( Moana ’s Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey, recent Broadway breakout via A Strange Loop, killing every joke he gets here) sing-monologuing to the camera as if narrating an Instagram Story. A later number, “Revenge Party,” turns the hallways of the school into a pastel dream space, while the plastic’s resident dunce, Karen (played by Avantika, who somehow finds a lane of “stupid” both hilarious and distinct from Amanda Seyfried’s), sings an ode to sexy Halloween costumes via what’s essentially a “get ready with me” video. This version tames some of the brutality of the original, in line with a slightly more progressive sensibility: Regina’s self-inflicted burn book insult is now “fugly cow ” rather than “slut” and Fey’s eyebrow-raising jokes about Coach Carr having sex with his Asian female students have been cut.
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