Mean Girls appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. The movie offered a good but not exactly spectacular Dolby Vision transfer.
Sharpness was usually fine. Some softness crept into wider elements or interiors and the flick rarely delivered impressive accuracy, but the majority of the movie delivered appealing delineation.
I saw no issues with jagged edges or shimmering, and no edge haloes appeared. Grain seemed pretty natural, while print flaws remained absent.
Given the story, Girls displayed a pink-oriented palette that looked peppy, though facial complexions veered all over the place – some times in the same scene. Initially it just felt like they slathered on too much fake tan on Lacey Chabert, but others showed oddly brown faces at times too.
This didn’t turn into a consistent issue, for as noted, the complexions varied, and other colors seemed appropriate, with nice boost from HDR. Also, these concerns may stem from the source. Whatever the case, the variations among skin tones seemed weird.
Black levels appeared deep and firm, while low-light shots presented appropriately dense but not excessively dark images. HDR gave whites and contrast extra oomph. Most of the time, the movie looked positive, but the occasional softness and the inconsistent skin tones left it as a “B”.
Don’t expect a lot of sonic ambition from the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack of Mean Girls, but the audio was fine for this sort of flick. Unsurprisingly, the sound remained largely oriented toward the forward channels.
Dialogue dominated the movie, so most of the additional information tended to be general ambience. We got some light movement of different elements and acceptable stereo imaging for the music.
A few scenes broadened the spectrum reasonably well. The “Animal World” sequences were the most prominent in this regard, and the Spring Fling opened up matters mildly. The track displayed little to make it stand out, but this kind of movie didn’t require anything more than what it offered.
Audio quality also seemed good but unexceptional. Speech came across as natural and distinct.
No edginess interfered with the lines, and the dialogue was consistently intelligible. The songs and score were reasonably bright and dynamic.
Effects functioned fine, with good clarity and range. Low-end was nicely tight and firm. Not a whole lot happened here to make Girls a standout mix, but it worked well for what it was.
How does the 4K UHD compare to the 2009 Blu-ray release? Audio seemed identical.
The Dolby Vision 4K visuals offered a boost, as this disc seemed cleaner, better defined and more vivid. Even with its drawbacks, the 4K demonstrated an obvious upgrade over the problematic Blu-ray.
The 4K UHD replicates the BD’s extras and adds a new one. We open with an audio commentary from director Mark Waters, writer/actor Tina Fey, and producer Lorne Michaels.
All three sit together for their running, screen-specific chat. The track has potential but rarely lives up to it.
Waters dominates, and Fey talks quite a bit, but Michaels chimes in much less frequently. The commentary covers cut sequences and other unused segments, alterations and bits adapted from the book, locations, and a lot of various notes from the set. The latter category fills most of the track; it lacks a great deal of concise data and usually tells us more about trivia.
This makes it fairly breezy but it doesn’t let us know much that sticks. Honestly, I find it hard to remember anything substantial about the film’s creation. The lackluster quality of the material presented combined with a lot of happy talk and praise turns this into a moderately entertaining but less than informative commentary.
When we head to the “Featurettes” domain, we find three programs. Only the Strong Survive lasts 24 minutes, 50 seconds and brings notes from Fey, Waters, Michaels, and actors Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, Lindsay Lohan, Jonathan Bennett, Daniel Franzeze, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler, Tim Meadows, and Lizzy Caplan.
The participants reflect on the way teen girls treat each other, the roots of the project, the characters and the actors, and the SNL connection. Some of the footage from the shoot seems interesting, and the occasional useful note about the casting pops up, but for the most part, this is a pretty superficial and lackluster program that doesn’t tell us much.
Next we get a 10-minute, 32-second featurette called The Politics of Girl World. It includes remarks from author Rosalind Wiseman.
She discusses her book and her creation of the Empower Program, an organization aimed at helping teens with their violence-related issues. She also chats about granting the movie rights to the book and other aspects of her work and study. It’s a pretty tight and informative look at the background to the movie.
Called Plastic Fashion, the last featurette runs 10 minutes, 23 seconds as it explores the clothes of the movie. We get notes from costume designer Mary Jane Fort.
She explains her work with an emphasis on the choices she made for the various characters. It presents a lot of good information and packs some nice details into its running time.
For some bloopers, Word Vomit gives us five minutes, 42 seconds of those. Expect the usual goofs and giggles.
The disc follows this with a trailer and three Interstitials that take a total of one minute, 36 seconds. These TV ads use unique footage created specifically for the promos, and that makes them more fun than usual.
After that we find nine Deleted Scenes that go for a total of six minutes, 56 seconds. Obviously none of these offer long, detailed segments, but they’re surprisingly amusing.
Most deleted scenes are cut for obvious reasons, but these include more than a smattering of funny bits. They definitely merit a look.
We can watch the segments with or without commentary from Waters and Fey. They offer some basic notes and give us a few remarks about why the segments didn’t make the cut. The commentary is decent but not terribly scintillating, and you won’t miss much if you skip it.
New to the 4K, Class of ‘04
goes for eight minutes, nine seconds. It involves Fey, Michaels, 2024 directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez, Jr., 2024 choreographer Kyle Hanagami, and 2024 actors Angourie Rice, Bebe Wood, Avantika, Ashley Park, Reneé Rapp, Busy Philipps, Christopher Briney, Jaquel Spivey, Auli'i Cravalho and Jenna Fischer.
A look back at the film 20 years later, “Class” mainly praises the original and promotes the 2024 remake. It lacks substance and doesn’t add anything to the package.
