For the most part, I was okay with that, and in all honesty, I didn't hate it. Legally Blonde is cute, Friday night filler that doesn't tax the cranium. Elle is basically Cher Horowitz, if you amped up the cutesy-pie factor and downplayed the cattiness. But Elle does have her catty moments, the best of which are aimed at the perpetually constipated Vivian, played by the perpetually constipated Selma Blair. But more on Elle and Vivian's relationship later.
What you are all DYING to know is what this cutesy, relatively successful three-year-old movie is about. Elle has been dumped by her boyfriend, the seriously bland and unattractive Warner (Matthew Davis, who's usually hot, but not so much here), and for some reason decides the best course of action to heal her wounds would be to follow him to Harvard.
But forget that in reality, such a plan is remarkably stupid. We're living in Legally Blonde's mega-cute-happy-fun world, remember? The world where the worst thing that can happen to someone is being divorced by your trailer trash husband who won't let you see your ugly dog.
Elle's quest to be reunited with Captain Vanilla is surrounded by an assortment of quirky but endearing individuals who all end up aiding Elle in some profound way. There's David (Oz Perkins), the creepy Will Ferrel-lookalike nerd. There's Enid Wexler (Meredith Lynn), and with a name like that, of course she's a gungho butch feminist dyke who's primary concern is fighting the sexism in the connotations behind the word 'semester'. There's Emmett (Luke Wilson), who is interesting in no way at all.
Then there's Paulette, Elle's beauty-shop mentor with guy troubles, who of course is played by Jennifer Coolidge. But best of all is Vivian. I normally don't like Selma Blair, and the fact that she was playing a bitch opposite such a NICESWEETLOVEABLECHARACTER_ELLERULZ4LIFE didn't sway her in my favour either. But the movie, in its one non-formulaic turn, takes Elle's nemesis (who would normally be humiliated and run off in tears or something by the end of the movie due to the main character's newfound empowerment) and makes them the best of friends halfway through the film. It was a nice take on the formula, and it helped me accept the fact that maybe Selma Blair isn't such a menace to humanity after all.
But as for the rest of the movie, you'll find more formula than inside a newborn baby's bottle. Elle is once happy, but then gets her ass smacked down, is depressed and wants to give up, but thanks to a bout of female empowerment on behalf of one of her profs, she Gets Back On Her Feet Again to right the wrong. The wrong, in this case, has something to do with Ali Larter and her dead husband. In the end, Elle wins her case because of the stupidity of a frizzy haired girl. Her slightly sexy but evil prof that tried to grope her takes the place of the would-be nemesis and is humiliated and shamed. Everyone is impressed that Elle, a ditzy blonde with considerable breasts could actually do something semi-intelligent. Everything is right again in Legally Blonde's very, very optimistic land of being.
And you know what? It wasn't the worst thing ever. The only glaring fault is the baffling Bend 'n' Snap sequence, which would have been completely unnecessary were it not for the random shot of Jennifer Coolidge grabbing her titties.
The performances were all fine. No real complaints, maybe except for the blandness that inhabited the bodies of Elle's two love interests. Reese injects the film with a cutesy poo darling loveable energy. She portrays Elle as a sort of innocent child (except for when she swears and talks about spending four hours fucking someone in a hot tub), so it's kinda hard not to want to see her happy and independent and empowered and in control of her life and girl power and I love equality.
It's not Clueless or Mean Girls, but it's also not Sugar & Spice and Jawbreaker. It resides in the medium of vapid-but-empowered girlie movies, and you get the feeling that that's just fine by Legally Blonde.
