STILL TRYING TO MAKE 'FETCH' HAPPEN, NOW IN SONG: 'MEAN GIRLS' GETS A MUSICAL UPDATE

The first “Mean Girls,” that compulsively watchable high-school based social satire by Tina Fey, came out in 2004. The Broadway musical opened in 2018.

Now it’s 2024, and we have a screen adaptation of the theater adaptation. How long will this reconfiguring go on? Is there a limit?

Or ... does the limit not exist?

Forgive us that utterly blatant setup for one of the original’s most famous lines. It’s just that some of them are so darned memorable. Like, “You can’t sit with us!” — screeched. Or when Regina, the haughtiest queen bee ever to carry a cafeteria tray, scathingly tells her minion Gretchen, who’s trying out her new word “fetch,” to “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen. It’s NOT going to happen!!”

But even in “Mean Girls 17,” should it come to that, someone will still be trying to make “fetch” happen. And it’s actually not a bad word to describe the experience of watching the new “Mean Girls” — a slick, fizzy bit of entertainment that’s occasionally delightful and usually fun, even if the translation to 2024 definitely has its rough spots.

If you’ve recently re-watched the first film, you may be surprised here at how many lines remain, word for word. What’s impressive is how many still work – unlike some social comedies that felt right 20 years ago but have scenes that fall with a thud now (see “Love Actually”).

There are exceptions, though. I’ll confess to feeling queasy throughout about the “dumb girl” character who remains in the Plastics, Regina’s social group. There is, thankfully, no more reference to a coach sleeping with a student, which would not have been funny, even with Jon Hamm as the coach. Slut-shaming has been conspicuously toned down – the insult in Regina’s famous Burn Book is now “cow” and not “slut.”