5.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Cady Heron is a hit with the Plastics, an A-list girl clique at her new school, and she makes mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic, Regina George.
Starring: Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auli'i Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, AvantikaComedy | 100% |
Musical | 71% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: Dolby Atmos
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
German: Dolby Digital 5.1
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish=Espana, Latinoamerica
English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
It just wouldn't be another week at the movies (or on Blu-ray.com) without another "remake" or "reimaging" popping up for perusal. And here is the latest, which is Mean Girls, directed by the duo of Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., written by Tina Fey, who just so happened to (co-)write the original Mean Girls which released 20 years ago and remains today something of a cultural classic. This remake keeps the essential narrative elements and characters but updates it for modern times (it's amazing how much has changed in two decades) while also adding the trendy musical component where a solid 45 minutes of the film is comprised of, and the story told through, song and sometimes dance. Is it a necessary remake/re-imagining? Not really, but the film is solidly constructed, well-acted, and in many ways looks and sounds just like the original, down to some very fine little touches, while of course carving out its own identity, primarily through its music.
Mean Girls was digitally shot but looks wonderfully filmic and satisfying. While the UHD is better, the Blu-ray is very, very good, offering first and most evidently, a terrific barrage of colors. The film takes place in a modern high school, so clothing colors are the most obvious tonal element in the film, and never do they disappoint. From blue jeans to pink tops and so many other colors in between, the colors are very expressive and well saturated. Of course, this extends to school colors as well, not to mention natural greens and other various colors throughout the film. Everything looks fairly neutral in temperature and contrast, and the image is very vivid indeed. Black levels satisfy, as do whites, while skin tones look spot-on. The image is a textural delight as well, yielding impressive clarity to faces and clothing, right down to the finest pore and line or fabric detail and stitch. Clarity abounds around the school and other locales, capturing every last nugget of detail for all they're worth at 1080p. The image is free of all but the slightest of noise while encode issues are essentially nonexistent. This is an A-grade image from Paramount.
Mean Girls arrives on Blu-ray with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack. This is not necessarily the sort of film one would expect to really benefit from an Atmos track over a more traditional 5.1 track or a slightly less traditional 7.1 track. There's not a lot of swooping action and intensive, hard core sort of audio output, but the added fullness and spaciousness -- the subtle overhead usage and the greater spatial usage and awareness -- help to offer the fullest and most comprehensive audio engagement available, even if the top layer is more about gentle support rather than prominent usage. Indeed, the overhead channels aren't used for any great and discrete material but help to bring a sense of absolute listening environment fullness to the listener, recreating school hallways, classrooms, cafeterias, and other locations where some of the more involved singing and environment elements take shape with very good engagement that does not prioritize the top but rather folds it into seamless perfection. Even some of the gentler environmental fill offers nicely lifted, if not very mild, support. The traditional surround wrap elements are more obviously integrated but still not used to discrete excess, again settling, and rightly so, to bring the stage to life, not to keep heads turning. The bulk of the music takes place up front, centered and stretched far out to the sides, yielding excellent coverage but also perfect prioritization and focus where it needs to be. Musical and vocal clarity are stellar, and the spoken word is also centered, well prioritized, crisp, and lifelike throughout.
This Blu-ray release of Mean Girls includes a several extras. No DVD copy of the film is included, but Paramount has bundled in a digital copy
code. This release ships with a non-embossed slipcover.
Mean Girls is at once very much in the spirit of the original -- down to near perfect recreations of lines, moments, people, and places -- while also bringing a new sense of identity and direction through its music. Is it a necessary take on the story? Not really, but then the vast, vast majority of remakes or re-imaginings are not explicitly "necessary." Still, it finds its place alongside the original as an interesting and watchable companion piece. Paramount's Blu-ray delivers high end video and audio and an enjoyable scattering of extras. Worth a look.
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