Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Jonathan Bennett, Rachel McAdams

8 out of 10 stars

Something of a Heathers for a new generation, Mean Girls represents a big step forward for three of its major participants, and for the teen movie genre in general, which hasn't had this good a shot of adrenaline since Bring It On four years ago. The most obvious benefactor of the film is Lindsay Lohan, who transcends her previous teen-queen roles with a smooth, stellar performance that should leave competitors like Hilary Duff eating her dust. But it's also the two guiding forces behind the film – director Mark S. Waters and writer (and co-star) Tina Fey – who exceed expectations. Waters, who flailed with Head Over Heels and then righted himself with Freaky Friday, proves he can helm more than an adroit Disney flick, and Fey transfers her dry, sardonic wit from Saturday Night Live with a sleek perfection. It's even more impressive that Fey took as her source material a non-fiction, parenting guide called Queen Bees and Wannabes and fashioned a smart, compelling, and very funny tale of high school treachery that rings true down to a number of small details.

Though its initial setup is a bit hard to believe – with high schooler Cady (Lohan) arriving in the Chicago 'burbs after trekking in the African wilds with her parents, who schooled her during their zoological work – it doesn't take long for Mean Girls to hit its stride. Anyone who's ever been the new kid in town can more than identify with Cady's helplessness on her first day of high school, where everyone's paired off into tightly-knit cliques and casual cruelty is the norm. Finding friends in two of the school's outcasts, the sorta punkish Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and the very gay-ish Damian (Daniel Franzese), Cady also finds herself drawn to a trio of popular girls known as "the Plastics" for their Barbie doll-like beauty. At her new friends' urging, Cady's enlisted to go "undercover" to dig up dirt on the three, especially alpha lioness Regina (Rachel McAdams), who rules the school with an iron fist that could send any Heather fleeing in abject fear.

A blank slate eager to be written upon, Cady begins to take on a little too much from the girls she's supposed to be undermining. She soon finds out her backstabbing is just a mirror of what happens between the three on a day-to-day basis, as Regina blithely plays both vain Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) and spacey Karen (Amanda Seyfried) against each other like chess pawns – all so Regina can come out on top. Cady's soon another playing piece, as her crush on dreamboat Aaron (Jonathan Bennett) serves merely as a springboard for Regina to re-ignite her selfish passion for the same boy. And soon enough, a war that's been only tacitly declared is out in the open, with Cady and Regina engaging in battle maneuvers whose emotional toils equal the physical ministrations of war movies like Saving Private Ryan. And it's not until it's too late that Cady realizes she's become her own worst enemy, just as plastic as Regina.

As in Heathers, all this leads to a school explosion, but this time it's figurative, not literal. And the way that Fey and Waters handle it – to give away all the twists would be to divest the film of a lot of its unexpected glee – is shrewd and smart, with hints towards the black comedy of Heathers that are mixed with the sunny disposition of Clueless. The mix of light and dark tones takes a little bit of time to even out, but within about half an hour you'll think Mean Girls has tapped into a brilliant vein of humor and misery – that is, if you're inclined towards teen comedies. Anyone who rolls their eyes at the mention Winona Ryder or Alicia Silverstone in their signature roles won't be disposed towards what Mean Girls has to offer, but the devoted group that saw Bring It On as a successor to both Heathers and Clueless will embrace Mean Girls with a monstrous fervor. Ultimately, Mean Girls is optimistic that high school behavior can be changed, but that it often takes a seismic shift to effect such an upheaval. It's serious stuff, but Fey and Waters aren't above using some great and unexpected comic bits to puncture any piousness or angst. And Fey's structuring of the screenplay, around selected vignettes that build to a climax that's both shocking and affectionate, is a bit meandering but also kind of brilliant in its slow unfolding of the characters. And her understanding of the true meanness of girls is spot-on, depicting their cutthroat world while never, ever preaching.

While some of the movie's elements are a bit overreaching – Cady's never hugely culture shocked, and a couple of the jokes fall into overtly obvious territory – it all coalesces together like Jello laced with both sugar and a tiny bit of strychnine. And though there is a huge cast, there's not a false note among them -- although Bennett, as the love interest, doesn't bring much to the party other than eyebrows that could get him cast as Peter Gallagher's son in any movie. Lohan finally taps into the promise shown in her previous Disney roles, and if she wants to, she can leave teen candy movies like Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen behind for an actual real live movie career. McAdams, who got short shrift in The Hot Chick, is a villainous adversary worthy of both fear and awe, while Seyfriend and especially Chabert (who does wonders with a Caeser-Brutus dissection in English class) are hilarious minions who veer towards caricature but never stumble over the edge. And unlike Heathers, Mean Girls believes that its witchy trio can be redeemed. It may be wish fulfillment, but as far as pipe dreams go, it's a nice one.