Sorority Wars

First, let me say I never saw Mean Girls - the movie and/ or any sequels or iterations (eg. Musical) - so for all the reviewers downgrading the movie because it's a "shameless Mean Girls rip-off," I have no basis to make that complaint. I reviewed this movie on its own merits alone.

Secondly, this is clearly a high-production value movie for a Lifetime movie. Not quite theatrical release quality, but certainly a Disney original movie or Netflix original movie quality.

The movie is carried brilliantly by hugely watchable multi-talented charismatic seasoned TV Queen Lucy Hale in an early-ish TV movie role that makes the movie engaging right out the gate.

Sticking to a common Lifetime setup wherein the star girl gets accepted or is recruited or pressured to join the same sorority as her mom as a "legacy" sister, the movie is built around the tension that ensues when the girl breaks from that mold. The movie could well have been entitle Mean Moms.

The campy sometimes cringy "warring" aside ("more like 'Little Whores on the Prairie'"), the movie does prove to be a mini-showcase for the loveable Hale.

This a Lifetime movie worth seeing.

30 minutes in & after I was done laughing at the boat load of college film cliches & tropes, it occurred to me how much of a huge Mean Girls ripoff this is. & WHY does Lifetime perpetually cast actors who look like 30 to pass for high school teens??

Sorority Wars is one of those movies that will surprise you. Its a fun and entertaining story that takes you on the journey of a rushee caught between 2 feuding sororities. The character development of the main character is great, its easy to stand behind her as she goes through every moment. Great performances by the core cast, especially Lucy Hale and Faith Ford.

I found myself truly enjoying this movie and following the story every step of the way. Its not in the ranks of some of the great teen movies, but it stands on its own, and stands tall. The best way i can describe this is...its fun.

The "On Demand" synopsis pretty well told it all. The questions weren't what was going to happen, only occasionally when. Lots of pretty people, although generally cardboard, even prettier campus housing/sorority houses. The hope is that this was all silly fiction, from the incredibly huge dorm rooms (two people in a room four times the size my daughter shared with three), to the silly trivia quiz, to the only course anybody seems to have gone to being art. To think that there could be people that actually pay $50K a year to have their children go to such an institution says things about our society I'd rather not address (gratuitous comment added to make the ten lines--this film isn't worth that many on its merits).

If you have nothing better to do, and you don't actually think about it, it isn't overly painful, but be warned, the banality oozes.

I rented this because of the actresses in this movie (and the plot appealed to me), and the resulting product surprised me. The daughter in the movie goes to college and agrees to pledge her mother's sorority. Unfortunately, the girls in this chapter turn out to be shallow snobs who care little about her, and she also checks out another one. After overhearing two sisters talking about "illegal stuff", she reports it, the sorority gets stripped of its upcoming formal, and she gets shunned by the campus population. Her best friend stays in the other sorority and becomes a "mean girl." She finally gets into the other sorority as a "late pledge," her mother is not too happy (as you can imagine), and an all-out war between the two sororities begins. I think this says something about our society and becoming our own person. I recommend it.

*** out of ****