Since nearly ALL movies are made to make money, there's certainly nothing wrong with the film makers here taking the single funniest scene in a successful comedy (MY COUSIN VINNY - where the oddball girlfriend knows something which the "smart" lawyer boyfriend doesn't and solves the case) and building an entire film around it. The conceit probably wasn't even original with MY COUSIN VINNY, and it certainly isn't in LEGALLY BLONDE, a sexist farce pretending to be "enlightened," but more or less saved by a passel of above average performances from a very appealing cast.
Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon in a less brilliant but just as surface starring follow-up to her break-through appearance in ELECTION) is an air-head Valley Girl waiting for the expected proposal from her preppie boyfriend (the appropriately smarmy Matthew Davis) when he announces that he's going to Harvard Law enroute to the U.S. Senate, and while she's been a great college lay - excuse me, girlfriend - she isn't good enough for a prospective senator's wife. Well, um, yeah . . . but it is sort of changing the rules Elle had been led to expect mid-game.
This sort of plot can go one of two ways - Elle can go for revenge (the funny but nasty SHE-DEVIL or DEATH BECOMES HER) or she can set out to get him back - and frequently find someone better in the effort (the vastly underrated ADDICTED TO LOVE). LEGALLY BLONDE tries to have it both ways. She'll get herself into Harvard (the best line in the film: "What? Like it's hard?") and SHOW him how "good enough" she really is.
Predictable, shallow but frequently funny complications ensue - along with some very nice performances from Luke Wilson (as a low-key associate attorney) and Holland Taylor (as a professor/mentor) and less impressive ones from Victor Garber (as a dour "powerful" attorney), Jennifer Coolidge (as a class-free beauty shop friend) and a mildly irritating chihuahua (as an irritating chihuahua). The funniest bit, exposing a lying witness (remember the bit from MY COUSIN VINNY?) also comes across unfortunately as homophobic - though it probably wasn't intended as such. The film makers simply didn't know any better than to pander to what they assumed were the continuing biases of their target teenage audience. The film would have been funnier if they had respected their audience more.
As it was, it was successful enough at the box office (very, actually) to generate a sequel (yawn) and in 2007, a Broadway musical comedy version. The script and score for the musical were sort of second rate (rather like the musical version of THE WEDDING SINGER and the silly movie which spawned it), but a first rate director/choreographer was able to work much the same alchemy on LEGALLY BLONDE The Musical that Robert Luketic was able to work on LEGALLY BLONDE The Movie and turn so-so material and an "all right" cast into something resembling gold. A good time was had by - well, if not all, enough.
Don't expect great art or even great comedy, but the movie's a nice diversion for a slow day or for little girls who need empowerment (the musical too).
Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon in a less brilliant but just as surface starring follow-up to her break-through appearance in ELECTION) is an air-head Valley Girl waiting for the expected proposal from her preppie boyfriend (the appropriately smarmy Matthew Davis) when he announces that he's going to Harvard Law enroute to the U.S. Senate, and while she's been a great college lay - excuse me, girlfriend - she isn't good enough for a prospective senator's wife. Well, um, yeah . . . but it is sort of changing the rules Elle had been led to expect mid-game.
This sort of plot can go one of two ways - Elle can go for revenge (the funny but nasty SHE-DEVIL or DEATH BECOMES HER) or she can set out to get him back - and frequently find someone better in the effort (the vastly underrated ADDICTED TO LOVE). LEGALLY BLONDE tries to have it both ways. She'll get herself into Harvard (the best line in the film: "What? Like it's hard?") and SHOW him how "good enough" she really is.
Predictable, shallow but frequently funny complications ensue - along with some very nice performances from Luke Wilson (as a low-key associate attorney) and Holland Taylor (as a professor/mentor) and less impressive ones from Victor Garber (as a dour "powerful" attorney), Jennifer Coolidge (as a class-free beauty shop friend) and a mildly irritating chihuahua (as an irritating chihuahua). The funniest bit, exposing a lying witness (remember the bit from MY COUSIN VINNY?) also comes across unfortunately as homophobic - though it probably wasn't intended as such. The film makers simply didn't know any better than to pander to what they assumed were the continuing biases of their target teenage audience. The film would have been funnier if they had respected their audience more.
As it was, it was successful enough at the box office (very, actually) to generate a sequel (yawn) and in 2007, a Broadway musical comedy version. The script and score for the musical were sort of second rate (rather like the musical version of THE WEDDING SINGER and the silly movie which spawned it), but a first rate director/choreographer was able to work much the same alchemy on LEGALLY BLONDE The Musical that Robert Luketic was able to work on LEGALLY BLONDE The Movie and turn so-so material and an "all right" cast into something resembling gold. A good time was had by - well, if not all, enough.
Don't expect great art or even great comedy, but the movie's a nice diversion for a slow day or for little girls who need empowerment (the musical too).