olly_mann

Gentlemen, an announcement. Legally Blonde – despite possessing a title worthy of porn and a Racquel Welch cameo – is, in fact, a chick flick. A girly movie, right from its pink squiggly titles through to its `be what you wanna be' conclusion. The kind of thing women enjoy when they've just split up with their boyfriends; like chocolate, or shagging their ex's best friend. No need to get upset, though: like the previous girly film from writer Karen McCullah Lutz (10 Things I Hate About You), it's a very entertaining one.

Our pretty protagonist is Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon), a prom-Queen, Clueless-type teen from Bel Air who lives for Prada and fluffy pink things. She's blonde. Her primary ambition in life is to marry her boyfriend, the debonair Warner Huntingdon III (Matthew Davis). He's not blond, and he doesn't take her seriously (hiss!), becuase he wants to be a Senator by the time he's thirty, and he needs a `Jackie, not Marilyn'. So he dumps her. And she follows him to Harvard Law School to show him she's more than just a blonde.

Except, in the true tradition of fish-out-of-water comedy, she isn't really more than a blonde, because that wouldn't be funny. Instead of changing herself, she endears herself to her contemporaries as the film goes on, which does, at times, create slightly uncomfortable viewing: are we supposed to be laughing at this crude caricature, or with her? This is a film that wants us to empathise with a dizzy blonde standing up for the rights of dizzy blondes to be treated as if they weren't dizzy blondes, which is a bit like Bernard Manning asking not to be treated like a fat racist Northerner.

Because the character remains so static, Witherspoon never really gets a chance to show what a great actress she can be (as those who have seen the far more satisfying Election will confirm). Actually, though this is undoubtedly Witherspoon's movie, the real breakthrough performance here is Jennifer Coolidge (Stifler's Mom from American Pie), who, in her supporting scenes as Elle's nail artist, reveals herself as a very capable comedy actress.

But these minor points of critique are, like, so irrelevant to the average viewer of Legally Blonde. This is a film that will make a lot of people (mostly girls) very happy. And, to quote Elle's legal advice, `happy people just don't kill their husbands. They just don't.' So us men gain too.

"A guy puts his dick in a pie and that's a movie?"

That, or something very much like it, was Spike Lee's reaction two years ago to a certain pastry-penetrating $11 million teen comedy that stole the summer box office and went on to gross $150 million worldwide. If you shared Spike's cynicism of the original, lord only knows what you'll make of the sequel, in which not only the penis - but also the mouth and anus - are unpleasantly violated for our viewing pleasure. But the chances are, you'll find yourself laughing.

The first film may well have ended with the four central characters toasting "the next step" after having lost their virginity. However, any fears that that next step might have involved the resolution of their neuroses, a less demeaning attitude to women, or indeed any kind of growing up at all, happily prove unfounded. Every member of the original cast is back, so that means more Jim (Jason Biggs) and his desperate quest for experience with the curiously-accented, amply-endowed Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth), more Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) lusting over a woman twice his age, and - joyfully - more of Jim's Dad (Eugene Levy) walking in at awkward moments and livening up the proceedings with sublimely awkward pep talks.

What's changed is the location: one year has now passed since the guys departed East Great Falls High for college, and, aiming for the best summer of their lives, they hire out a lakeside cabin and wait for the girls to roll on in. When this doesn't quite happen as planned, the boys seek out other ways to widen their sexual experience. Oz (Chris Klien) opts for phone sex in an attempt to maintain his long distance relationship with Heather (Mena Suvari). Stifler (Carrey-alike Seann William Scott, who should be given his own movie, right now, and possibly also a crown) breaks into the house next door and discovers a vibrator. And, in the most welcome plot development, Jim gets to visit band camp and reconvene with his prom partner Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). And then gets a trumpet up his a***.

Has any film ever made been quite so acutely aware of its target audience? Writers Adam Herz and David H. Steinberg have clearly been doing their research: close your eyes and, as each set-piece looms nearer, you can almost hear the sound of innumerable focus groups behind the scenes, all consisting entirely of adolescent boys, all being asked exactly the same question - "And what's the worst thing that could happen now?" The humiliations they dream up as a result only moderately compete with that initial dick-in-a-pie shock of yore; yet, like its predecessor, this movie succeeds magnificently in tuning into today's teenage moviegoers, their popcorn attention spans, and their appetite for embarrassment. Why simply get caught wanking by your parents when you can get caught by the whole town? Why simply be using your hands when you can be using lubricant? Why simply use lubricant when you could be using... ah, but that would be telling.

And yet things are never allowed to get out of hand (pun intended): under all the gross-out humour runs a pulse of carefully calculated conservatism. Family values are mocked, but never undermined. Halfway into the film, and according to tradition, director James B. Rogers rewards his audience with a hard-earned glimpse of tit (lesbian tit at that). But whenever it all seems to be getting a bit too "Porky's", the sentimental music intervenes and we're reminded that, hey kids - sometimes it's all about respect. This smoothness of production threatens the rawness of the franchise somewhat, but it's to the filmmakers' credit that so many sketchy loose ends are tied together for a happy ending that (just) avoids substituting comedy with corniness. It may not be a movie, Spike, but it is funny. Let's just hope they call it a day before number three.

It's been four years since Jackie Brown. In the intermittent period,

Robert De Niro's reputation as one of the finest actors of his

generation has remained unblemished. Time for a rethink. After

the unenviable hat-trick of Flawless, 15 Minutes, and, most

bizzarely, The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle, the sour-faced

master of Method has once again opted to star in a movie that

neglects the most basic elements of storytelling and requires him

only to scowl a bit. And play with some cool gadgets.

De Niro plays Nick, a veteran smooth criminal whose day job

invovles running a Montreal Jazz bar, and whose extra-cirricular

skills include breaking into a safe faster than Houdini could break

out of one. Asked by his eccentric middle man Max (a whale-sized

Marlon Brando) to endeavour on "one...last...job" for a cool $6

million, his initial reaction is to refuse the prospect because of the

risk. But after some persuasive encounters with the up-and-coming young heister Jack (Edward Norton), he changes

his mind and - guess what? - the con is on.

Director Frank Oz (In & Out, Bowfinger) has never tackled a thriller

before, and it shows - his lengthy, steady, shadow-shaded

photography is so concerned with mimicking noirish cinema that

he forgets to build up any tension for the first ninety minutes. He is

unaided by a shocking script that allows for no conflict, no

back-story, and no comprehensible understanding of what the

object they are trying to steal actually is. And our hero's motive? If

he does the steal, he gets to pay off the mortgage. Genius. If I

finish writing this review, I can go to Starbuck's and get a coffee. To

be fair, things do step up a gear for the final reel, but to say that a

heist movie has a good heist scene is like saying that Karma

Sutra has some sex in it.

Of course it's not exactly De Niro's fault that it all turned out this

way, but, considering the influence he must wield in Hollywood, it

surely wouldn't have been difficult for him to demand script

changes that might actually have made himself and his co-stars

shine in the way that they ought to. Movie fans all over the world

should join hands and hope that he has now learned his lesson

and can return to form. However, considering his next two projects

are sequels to Analze This and Meet The Parents, that's some

hope indeed.