"Mean Girls" lives up to its title. Its main characters are some of the cattiest, most nasty girls to show up in a film that's directed at a teen audience in some time.
But as mean-spirited as the film sometimes is, it's not as unpleasant as that makes it sound. Its sometimes-toxic brand of humor sets this movie apart from so many other generic teen comedies. In some ways it's reminiscent of the 1989 cult hit "Heathers," though this one's not nearly that dark.
The film comes as a refreshing breath of air from its star, Lindsay Lohan — especially seeing how her last movie was the too-cutesy-for-words "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen."
This time around, Lohan has re-teamed with her "Freaky Friday" director Mark Waters. She stars as Cady Heron, a new student at North Shore High School.
Cady — whose name is pronounced Katie instead of "Catty" — has spent years being home-schooled in Africa by her zoologist parents (Ana Gasteyer and Neil Flynn), so the cut-throat atmosphere of public school comes as a surprise to her.
She soon falls in with an unpopular twosome (Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Franzese) but is also being courted by "the plastics," a trio of fashionable students led by Regina George (Rachel McAdams).
This leads to Cady's being torn between her loyalties to new friends and the enticing promise of popularity.
Screenwriter Tina Fey (who takes a supporting role as Cady's math teacher) used Rosalind Wiseman's nonfiction best-seller "Queen Bees and Wannabes" as the basis for the material, and there's a ring of truth to much of it.
Unfortunately, Waters' soft direction mutes the punch of some of the better jokes and lingers too long after some of the worst ones. But the talented cast helps things out. And Lohan takes a big step away from previous blandness.
The film features a surprisingly funny supporting turn by Fey's "Saturday Night Live" cohort Tim Meadows as the school's tough-talking but really mild-mannered principal.
"Mean Girls" is rated PG-13 for crude sexual humor and references, scattered use of strong profanity, violence (slapstick brawling, as well as vehicular, all of it done for laughs), brief sexual contact, brief drug content (references to drug use) and racial epithets. Running time: 97 minutes.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com