Legally Blonde

Robert Luketic

BY Erin OkePublished Nov 17, 2016

Following in the grand tradition of such films as "Clueless" and the original "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie, "Legally Blonde" is a coming of intelligence story of a young ditzy Californian girl. Resse Witherspoon stars as Elle, the perky blonde sorority girl whose life is a vapid fairy tale until her old money boyfriend Hunter Worthington III ditches her because she's too perky and blonde and not serious enough for his Harvard Law School bound self. Elle then take it upon herself to get into Harvard Law too, to follow the boy and show him her serious side. Miraculously, she makes it in, only to find Hunter engaged to his snooty ex-girlfriend and the rest of her classmates less than impressed with her scholastic performance. But Elle's perseverance pays off, as she buckles down to become one of the best students Harvard Law has ever seen, wins a coveted internship at a prestigious firm, almost single-handedly solves a major case, and along the way learns the true meaning of love and changes the lives of practically everyone she encounters.

OK, so there are plot holes in this thing that you could drive a Mack truck through. It's a sloppily made movie, with a few different story lines slapped together forcibly in a way that doesn't quite fit. It is certainly not as funny or well executed as "Clueless" or "Buffy," with the whole shtick seeming a little tired at this point. That said, "Legally Blonde" is still pretty fun. Resse Witherspoon is so genuinely enthusiastic and likeable as Elle that, even though the film spends too much effort making her seem like goodness personified as she is showed helping everyone she meets improve their lives in some way, you do still honestly want her character to succeed. The style of the film's script and direction is so consistently over-the-top that after a while the massive plot implausibilities cease to matter all that much. It's a piece of fluff that, in the right frame of mind, can be totally pleasurable.

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