OxfordPress.com

Grade: C

Verdict: A comedy way too lame for the talents of Reese Witherspoon.

Details: Starring Reese Witherspoon. Directed by Robert Luketic. Rated PG-13 for profanity and sexual references. One hour, 36 minutes.

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Review: From the moment you see our heroine Elle's name spelled out in spangles, it's hard not to think of “Clueless,” whose lead character was called Cher. In “Legally Blonde,” the Southern California landscape of giggling, yellow-maned Rodeo Drive shoppers and sportscar-driving studs reinforce the similarities.

That does the new movie no favors, since by comparison Amy Heckerling's clever 1995 twist on Jane Austen's “Emma” is a comic masterpiece.

Reese Witherspoon stars as Elle, at first the total opposite of the academic overachiever she played in “Election.” A pampered Bel Aire belle whose only goal is to marry her golden-boy boyfriend, she gets a shock when Warner (Matthew Davis) breaks things off at the end of their senior year of college. En route to Harvard Law School and a career in the appearance-sensitive world of politics, he explains, “I need to marry a Jackie, not a Marilyn.”

Long story short, Elle decides to follow him to Harvard. After all, she has a 4.0 average, albeit in fashion merchandising. And the admission's board's emphasis on diversity lands her a place in the first-year law class. (Elle's application video, taped poolside in a bikini, is one of the movie's highlights.)

But once it comes to Cambridge, “Blonde” becomes a series of predictable fish-out-of-water scenarios as Elle, whose reflective outfits make her look like a Mylar-draped Barbie, tries to square her Think-Pink cheerfulness with her fellow students' studious glowers.

Now, how much would you bet that Elle decides to get serious about school? And earns the respect of her tough professors (Holland Taylor and Victor Garber)? And actually gets to work on a real-live murder case? And in the process, like, discovers that her sense of worthiness comes from inside, and not through some guy's love? Unless maybe it's that super-cute guy (Luke Wilson) who's smart and sensitive and he's already a lawyer?

Like, duh! If you guessed all that, you could've written this movie yourself!

Line-to-line, the script includes some zingers. But the plot follows such an obvious arc, the movie feels half-hearted, a lost opportunity. It doesn't help that director Robert Luketic encourages his actors to play as broadly as possible, including Elle's California gal-pals (one of whom is clearly well past college age) and Selma Blair as her snooty rival for Warner's affection. Poor Blair is stuck doing one big sneer for most of the movie. Then there's cartoonish Raquel Welch, playing to the back row in a courtroom cameo as a wealthy ex-wife.

There's only one reason these problems don't seem so painful as you watch: Witherspoon carries the movie almost single-handedly, whether she's putting on a brave face when getting ridiculed, or showing her manicurist friend (Jennifer Coolidge) a sure-fire way to get a man's attention. (She calls it the “bend and snap,” and it's a priceless maneuver until Luketic, as usual, goes overboard and shows Elle teaching her technique to a whole salon of over-eager women.)

My advice? Rent a double-bill of “Election” and “Clueless.” Witherspoon's ferocious comic talent needs a movie that lets her stretch, not one that pins her down. Teen girls might get a kick out of “Legally Blonde.” It's sweet-natured, and it goes a long way to prove its heroine is smart. But the movie itself never is.

— Steve Murray, (none)