Legally stupid (Legally Blonde (DVD))

Member Name: mmintfresh

Product:	Legally Blonde (DVD)
Date:	04/08/02 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reese Witherspoon

Disadvantages: The film

Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon)seems like your typical soroity girl and also the definative blonde girly girl. She is president of her sorority, she is popular and is loved by her sisters, she is rich, beautiful loves pink and is not that bright. One night she goes out on a date with her boyfriend, Warner (Matthew Davis) think that today is the night that he is going to propose to her, however this isn't true. He breaks up with her. His reasons are that he is going to Harvard Law School and basically if he is dating Elle his reputation would plummet because she is a bimbo. Elle falls into a slump and nothing can cheer her up. Then she gets a bright idea. If she was more smart and went to law school she could win her boyfriend out. So she applies to Harvard with her video essay where she struts around in many outfits and list her extra curicular activites as being in a Ricky Martin video.

For some reason the board accept her and she turns up in her respectable outfits, complete with glasses and goes to Harvard. She thinks it is going to be a blast but realises that everyone thinks she is just a dumb blonde. She is laughed at in class and stands out from the crowd. She also finds that Warner has a new girlfriend, Vivian (Selma Blair) who is a snob. All this teasing makes Elle determined to prove that she is not just a dumb blonde and when she is picked to represent a woman accussed of murder (Ali Larter) she sees it as her chance to prove everyone wrong.

The most accepted opinion of this film is that it is a sweet, silly comedy that everyone loves and also proves that blondes aren't that dumb. I completely diagree. Firstly I didn't find the film that funny. The jokes just didn't work for me. A lot were obvious and the one liners were jsut annoying because they showed most of them in the trailer so by the time I saw the film they were just old. Also some moments that are suppossed to be funny fall flat. The story itself isn't remar
kable original either. Basically it's about someone learning to be themselves and proving that they aren't what everyone thinks they are.

Another thing I didn't like was the fact that in the end I didn't think Elle was that smart. Firstly the only thing that she really knew about was fashion and beauty and for me that doesn't make you intelligent. So the message that blondes aren't bimbos wasn't proved (although I don't think that blondes are bimbos). Although it seems opposed to stereotyping blondes it gives often accross the message that law students are stuck up snobs and also are very boring, which in a film about proving yourself to be more that you seem is wrong. The blonde not being so dumb has been done to a better extent in other films like Clueless.

I admit that Reese Witherspoon is amazing in this flick and puts in a great performance that made this film bareable. However she has been better, Election comes to mind when she played Tracy Flick, almost the polar opposite of Elle Woods. Also in Pleasantville when she plays another dumb blonde who becomes smart she was better, but still mamnages to hold this film together. The other performances are passable, with Luke Wilson, Selma Blair and Matthew Davis all giving passable but not outstanding performance.

I admit I am not a fan of teen films so this isn't realy the film for me but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they loved pink and teen flicks, steer clear otherwise.

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