‘Jo Mitchell, you have no idea how scary I can be...’
The existence of Mean Girls 2 poses a number of questions. ‘There’s a Mean Girls 2?’, ‘Why is there a Mean Girls 2?’, ‘Who on Earth would watch such a thing?’. In order, yes, I’ve no idea, and me – a hopeless completist. Produced for Paramount Famous in July of 2010 and released in January 2011 to a critical shrug but surprisingly massive viewing figures, Mean Girls 2 is a sequel to Mean Girls in only the loosest sense of the word. Tim Meadows as the beleaguered head school principal Ron Duvall is the only returning cast member, and while the film takes place in the same fictional high school (North Shore High School in Ohio), the events of the first film aren’t referenced once…
Jo Mitchell (Meaghan Martin) is a bit like Cady Heron in that she arrives at North Shore late and doesn’t know anyone, but she’s also much more assertive and much less vulnerable. Mandi Weatherly (Maiara Walsh), the Regina George stand-in, is nowhere near as toxic as her predecessor, and never convinces either the audience or the other characters that she will defeat the protagonist in their predictably dull popularity contest. There are other characters here, a whole new bunch of Plastics for one, but only Abby Hanover (Jennifer Stone) manages to cut through in any meaningful way. She serves as Jo’s kind but unpopular best friend. While Stone delivers a likeable performance, it’s difficult to feel too much sympathy for a character who literally lives in a mansion.
Mean Girls 2 is not offensively bad; it’s far too bland for that. But it is a pointless film. The cast do their best with the insipid material they have been given, and Martin is at least spirited in the lead role, but this is candyfloss in film form. You think it’s alright to begin with, then you can’t wait for it to be done with, and by the time you’ve finished it, you’ve almost forgotten that you ever had it in the first place. It never threatens to be actually funny despite being a ‘comedy’, and the plot beats and character arcs are so predictable that I could have turned the thing off halfway through and would still know exactly what transpired at the end. Nobody is getting hit by a bus, that’s for certain.
Aside from the very specific demographic who caught this on first release (mostly teenage girls who watch the Disney Channel), there can’t be many other fellow travellers to the grave who have sat through Mean Girls 2. Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to. The film is a great big nothing.
