La blonde contre-attaque

I loved the original Legally Blonde, and I knew going into this movie that it wouldn't be as good as the original. My only solace lies in the thought that this could have been so much worse than it was.

First, LB2 relied too much on the Elle-Woods-Fish-Out-Of-Water plot. It should have portrayed the main character as being savvy enough to take advantage of the fact that her opponents always underestimated her. After all, she's been out of law school a couple of years already, surely she'd have learned that much, right?

Second, the plot itself was too contrived. There wasn't a single believable character in the show, and Witherspoon was just a caricature of the original movie's heroine.

But I still managed to enjoy most of the show. I even chuckled in a couple of scenes. But I winced at far too many other scenes, and the climactic speech to Congress was abominable.

I've seen worse remakes than this, but I think the producers missed an opportunity to make a good film instead of a knock-off.

Although I recognize the fact that I'm a guy and shouldn't like chick flicks anyway, Legally Blonde 2 was ridiculous on so many levels that after watching the movie I had to lower my head in shame.

The first LB movie, while not very funny, was still entertaining to watch because it actually had effort put into the storyline. It was interesting to see a fashion-obsessed blonde in pink apparently not fitting in at Harvard law school. They tried the same approach with LB2, only with her walking into congress buildings wearing her all pink outfits. However, since we've already seen that attempt at humor in the first movie, it just wasn't anything special.

Aside from that, the plot outline was horrible. Basically, Elle Woods (Witherspoon) is having an upcoming wedding where she plans to invite the mother of her pet dog. She discovers that the dog's mother is in a lab, where they were testing fingernail polish on the dog's nails. Elle got sad and was like 'I am going to go to DC and make it illegal for them to test on animals!' The viewer, however, doesn't really care, realizing that putting nail polish on a dog's nails really isn't that big of a deal, but hey.

I'm not trying to sound mean, but I just can't really think of anything good about this movie. Every single joke used in the movie was either not funny or recycled from the first one. The entire concept of the plot is just retarded. It even seemed Reese was half-assing her acting job through the movie, doing even worse than she did in the first film. Nobody else in the movie will be nominated for any Oscars, either.

It just seemed that some filmmaker wanted to cash in from the first movie's success, knowing that people will pay money to see this movie just because the first one was popular. All of the production team's effort went into marketing and hype and they just didn't put enough into the actual movie itself.

2 out of 10

Reese Goes to Washington. We discover that, beneath a very very thin veneer of protocol, politics in DC largely functions EXACTLY like a sorority! Isn't that cool? How FUN! But how on earth will Reese figure out to puncture this veneer of propriety and protocol that prevents people from doing the right thing and allows bureacracy and EEEEEEVIL to propogate through the legislative halls of our great land? well, i don't want to spoil the whole movie for you! But guess what? The really cool and honest Legislator that Reese goes to work for? She's kind of EEEEEEVIL!

There can be little doubt, this movie is an inferior follow-up to Legally Blonde. Too many characters are recycled and made to look cute, but it doesn't work as well as when it was fresh. Still, Reese Witherspoon has created in 'Elle Woods' a character that is just fun to watch. She never stays down long, always picking herself up with a fresh approach until she achieves her goal. I look at it like a 'Roadrunner' cartoon, but with real people. It is silly and implausible, but funny. In this case the 'bad guys' are the US Congress in a parody of it's habit of making backroom deals and taking care of supporters to guarantee reelection, even if nothing is done to help constituents. Elle Woods finds that animals are used to test cosmetics, and her quest is to get a law passed that will make it illegal. Nothing more than cute, funny fluff.

Yes, yes I know it's a sequel so what do I expect. Well, generally I do expect a lot from Reese Witherspoon. I enjoyed Legally Blonde a lot, and thought it was clever and very funny. In it, Elle backed up her perkiness and style with competence. Even the courtroom scene, if audacious, was reasonably believable. However improbable, it was at least possible for the plot to take the twists and turns that it did, and for Elle to achieve success - which ultimately Elle's success was due to her hard work and brilliant mind, not her looks.

The new movie has none of that. The scenes of committee hearings and Congressional sessions are completely unrealistic and not believable. The sad thing is it probably COULD be made believable, but it's just not done right. Even worse, her ultimate success comes in spite of her incompetence in the political arena, rather than due to her competence. And her marriage - which to Elle's character would be expected to be a VERY big deal - is a minor subplot. Overall the script feels half-done, and as a result the whole thing just doesn't work. At least there were a few good yuks, though not as many as in the original movie.

I've heard they're working on LB3, in which Reese runs for President. Let's hope Reese gets a little more "Type A" and gets that one done right again.