Legally Blonde 2

"Utterly ridiculous" is the term that bounces to mind when watching Reese Witherspoon's second flick in the franchise that resurrects the valley girl with a vengeance. And while utterly ridiculous can be an acceptable, even favourable, term for comedic movies, Legally Blonde 2 is utterly ridiculous in a "you wasted two hours of my life" way. Still riding the fuscia wave from their former surprise hit of the summer, the writers are stuck for a next wrung on Elle Woods' ladder of fame. Get this. While trying to track down the parents of her beloved Chihuahua, Bruiser, to invite to her upcoming nuptials, Elle discovers the mother is being used as a test subject. Distressed, Elle makes a case to her law firm for ending animal testing and is dismissed. Undaunted, Elle gets in touch with former acquaintance Congresswoman Victoria Rudd (a blonde Sally Field), a fellow pet lover, who agrees to take her on, and Elle travels to Washington to lobby for a bill to end animal testing. Punctuate this with a discovery of Bruiser's same-sex orientation, a baffling dance sequence, an unforgivably ill-used cast of Bob Newhart, Jennifer Coolidge, Regina King, Luke Wilson, and Fields, wash it in pink and Prada and you have Legally Blonde 2. The DVD is even more ridiculous than the film. Features include an audio commentary by supporting actors, a making-of mini-doc, some deleted scenes, a gag reel, a quiz, music videos, trailers and a photo gallery. It's kind of sad, when watching the "Blonde Ambition" featurette, as the director and cast discuss all the time, effort and hopes that went into Legally Blonde 2. But as Ben Affleck so aptly put it regarding Gigli, "You work just as hard on a good movie as on a bad one." Deleted scenes include some that would have fleshed out Elle's relationships with Sally Fields' character and with Regina King's, and also would have afforded Wilson a precious few more lines, but mercifully saved us from the original closing scene. The gag reel, like the film, has pitiful few laughs. Thankfully, the video for Leann Rimes' "We Can" adds a little bit of polish to what was stripped away during the tacky Delta Nu quiz, in which the sound and picture do not match. (MGM)