Can you believe that the movie Mean Girls is now older than the high school students that it’s about? That’s right, Mean Girls turned 19 years old in April. While scrolling through the endless garbage on Netflix recently, I decided to see if the movie was as good as I remember it being those 19 years ago.

I saw this movie in theaters when it came out. I remember it being a huge hit and a cultural talking point for months. I also remember it being quoted ad nauseam by everyone that saw the movie. Granted I was twelve years old, so maybe it was just a talking point for middle-schoolers. But I distinctly remember the scene where Amanda Seyfried’s character, Karen Smith (damn was this before Karen’s became a thing even? Tina Fey is on some time travel shit), fake coughing into the phone and saying “I’m sick.” Only for Regina George (Rachel McAdams) to reply “boo, you whore.” I remember this line being quoted by every single person that attended West Minico Middle school. That wasn’t the only one, but this quote sticks out in my mind for some reason. I remember loving this movie then… how will it hold up now?

I’m not going to prolong this any further: I still really enjoyed this movie. I loved the characters, I loved the world this is set in, I loved the writing, I still loved when Regina said “boo, you whore” (my wife and I have been saying this to each other since), and I really honestly just loved this movie. It’s extremely watchable and doesn’t miss a beat on pacing. Every scene lands perfectly. There honestly isn’t a flat spot in this movie. A TON of the jokes land and there are a ton of amazing one-liners. A particular favorite is when Cady’s (Lindsay Lohan) true friends finally tell Cady that she is too far gone. That she has become the very thing they despised. This type of scene happens a ton in teen, coming-of-age stories. The hero goes too far and forgets their real friends. Only to realize that they have pushed away the people that really mattered. We have seen it done plenty of times. But in Mean Girls, when the true friends deliver the standard eye-opening speech, one of Cady’s friends, Damian (Daniel Franzese), continues to drive past Cady saying, “I am NOT stopping this car, I have an 11 PM curfew and it’s 11:15.” He continues to drive away while Janice (Lizzy Caplan) tries to hurriedly deliver the speech about how Cady has become plastic through the sunroof of the car. It’s hilarious and such a wonderful take on the standard, third act breakdown.

Overall, I think Mean Girls is still incredibly quotable. The movie is paced to perfection and lands beat after beat. It’s a true testament to Tina Fey and her wonderful writing. Every character (even characters that are just there to land one-liners) feel incredibly alive and the world is just beautifully crafted. There is a jungle cat theme that nicely ties the entire setting together. It is a perfectly watchable movie and I think it holds up incredibly well.

So, was 12 year old Gage correct in his assessment of Mean Girls? No… No he was not… It’s not just a good movie about High school drama and what he had to look forward to in a couple years. It might be one of the best High school based comedies ever made.

I cannot believe that I am going to type this, but Mean Girls gets a 4 out of 4. I went into this movie expecting to watch something a little better than the trash on Netflix, but ended up reuniting with one of the greatest paced movies of all time. I am so pleasantly pleased with this movie and never would have guessed that it holds up even better than I remember.