La Revanche d'une blonde

"Legally Blonde" is all about Witherspoon as a totally val blonde from Beverly Hills who goes to Harvard and makes good. Predictable formula fun, "LB" gets off to a good start with the freshness of "Clueless", pushes its own envelope of believability in the middle, and ends with a major feel good moment. Along the way, this fun family flick makes some good points about life's priorities. Enjoyable stuff for 13 and up.

In `Legally Blonde,' – which could well be re-titled `Clueless Goes to Harvard' - the delightful Reese Witherspoon stars as a ditzy, fashion-obsessed airhead who winds up (through plot complications too elaborate to go through) taking that Ivy League law school by storm. Needless to say, there is not a single believable moment in the film, but that is generally the case with most fish-out-of-water scenarios anyway. What `Legally Blonde' does have is a warm spirit, a bubbly demeanor and a breezy charm that reflect to a tee the personality of its main character.

Although the film does not exhibit the same level of comic genius we found in `Clueless,' Witherspoon's letter-perfect rendition of the bubblehead stereotype earns the film a great deal of audience goodwill, a factor that helps us to get over some of the movie's flatter moments. For indeed, throughout the course of this tale, we do hit a number of arid stretches where we feel that we should be laughing an awful lot more than we are. In fact, `Legally Blonde' occasionally feels more like a concept in search of a movie than a full-fledged work in its own right. But, just as you are about to give up on it, the filmmakers hit upon a hilarious concept, sight gag or line of dialogue, which help to set the movie back on track.

Clearly, Witherspoon is the big selling point of this film. As an actress, she exudes such an air of intelligence, confidence and compassionate goodwill that she invests even her dumb blonde character with those seemingly paradoxical traits. `Legally Blonde' isn't always at the top of its form, but Witherspoon wins the case for the film hands down anyway.

Legally Blonde finds Reese Witherspoon in one of her breakthrough roles as sorority queen Elle Woods who is dumped by her preppy boyfriend Matthew Davis. He's moving on to Harvard Law School where he will get his law degree, marry a woman of good background in Selma Blair and claim the family legacy of public office. So there's no time for his homecoming queen Reese although I'm sure he'd arrange something on the side later.

She's totally floored by this, but our intrepid girl vows to fight fire with fire. If he can go be a Hah-Vard Law School Graduate so can she. I mean she's got a 4.0 GPA even if it is in fashion design.

But beneath her Barbie Doll personality, she actually does have a brain. She aces the law boards and sends a unique video essay that is something different for the admission committee to ponder. She gets to Harvard to be with Davis, who's unfortunately there with Blair.

At this point the charm of Reese Witherspoon really takes over and dominates the film. I'm not sure anyone else could have pulled off the part of Elle Woods. With that wonderful combination of charm and guilelessness, Reese Witherspoon has created an endearing character, one she's already done a sequel film with.

She's nicely aided by Luke Wilson as an attorney and crony of one of her law professors. Another performance that I liked was that of Holland Taylor as a feminist law professor who's initially put off by Witherspoon, but gradually comes to appreciate her worth.

In fact in the end just about everyone in the film comes to appreciate her worth, some to their regret.

I don't know about you, but I'd like to see a Legally Blonde 3.

Legally Blond

Behind the fluff lays a really brilliant script, brilliant comic timing and really great acting.

Only a withered cynic could fail to love this movie.

I didn't go into "Legally Blonde" expecting too much. I rarely go to actual movie theaters to see a film (I usually rent videos/DVDs), but I got an advance on this one, and I was kind of sad it had to be this film I was going to see, but I had been invited along with two other people to see it and I wasn't going to say "no" for no reason. So I went.

One of the persons I went with just wanted to see Reese Witherspoon in a Playboy bunny costume, so I figured I was in for another average run-'o-the-mill sex comedy. But I was very surprised with the outcome.

So many girl-power comedies these days are made just for the sake of trying to prove a point that women are equals to men (I suppose that's the message behind it--what else was "Now and Then" made for?) and/or support for women. Fortunately, the 2001 hit "Legally Blonde" is not only a pleasant surprise, but an intelligent film, as well. (Sorry, that was my main "gripper" for this review and I had to leave it in.)

Reese Witherspoon plays California sorority girl Elle Woods. Unlike other people her age that are worrying about grades in school, Elle only worries about what toilet paper is the softest. But after her boyfriend dumps her and goes off to Harvard Law School, Elle is determined to go to Harvard and get her man back. So after putting together a very shallow video for the chairmen of Harvard, they accept her into the prestige college (because of her innocent sexuality, no doubt, as we see them gaping at Elle in a bathing suit on the video), and she packs her bags and heads off to Harvard with her little dog Bruiser; as the ads say, "Boldly Going Where No Blonde Has Gone."

"Legally Blonde" doesn't give up on the plot and completely divulge into dumb blonde/sex jokes. This film not only has a funny--if ridiculous--plot, but the jokes are, surprisingly, NOT crude sexual jokes. This film is not another "Scary Movie" made for teens: It has divinely orchestrated comic timing.

Sometimes the plot gets a bit too heavy--the whole teacher-hitting-on-Elle thing is a bit stereotypical for a film like this--but in the long run it seems to break away from the typical girl-power comedy.

Reese Witherspoon tends to play the same characters a lot, but hey, if she can pull them off, good for her. I don't mind if all her characters tend to be the same (to a certain extent) because they tend to be quite funny and cute--who can't laugh at her Elle Woods persona?

The film has a very nice co-star cast: Victor Garber ("Titanic," "Sleepless in Seattle"), Luke Wilson ("Blue Streak," "Charlie's Angels"), and Selma Blair ("The Sweetest Thing," A Guy Thing"--pretty much anyTHING).

In the end, not only does "Legally Blonde" come off very funny, but also very witty, good-natured and sweet: One of the most pleasant surprises of 2001, indeed.

4/5 stars -

John Ulmer