Mean Girls 2 (2011)

Mean Girls 2 (2011)

Directed by: Melanie Mayron

Starring: Meaghan Martin, Donn Lamkin, Linden Ashby

So remember when I said that Mean Girls was actually not terrible because it didn’t follow the same old well-trodden high school drama you always get in movies like that? Well, this TV sequel decided that wasn’t for them, and went back to the safe formula where the good people are irrepressibly good, and the bad people are evil no matter what, and damn all their motivations back to the hell of creative writing where they came from!

A new girl comes into town and tries to fit into the high school crowd, and succeeds 100%! There are only three girls who don’t like her, because they’re super girly and she’s a tomboy, so they try to wreck her and her dad’s lives in an effort to undermine her popularity. The whole thing somehow culminates in a football game which doesn’t mean anything, and then the good girl wins homecoming queen, despite being in school for several months already.

There are no sharp edges to this story, nothing’s surprising or new or interesting in any way. It is kinda nice that the main character is a self-confident teenage girl, but they accomplish this by saying she’s a tomboy and giving her masculine traits, and this self-confidence is never tested or even marginally dinged by any of the conflict in the story. Watching this film is basically an exercise in remembering that Tim Meadows still exists, and apparently his last ten years of inactivity have made him incredibly bitter. So I guess if that’s the kind of schadenfreude you’re into, this here’s your flick.