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'Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde'

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Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Bob Newhart, Luke Wilson, Regina King
Director: Charles Herman-Wurmfeld
MPAA rating: PG-13 for some sex-related humor
Running time: 94 minutes
Release date: July 2
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By Chris Hewitt
Saint Paul Pioneer Press

Posted: July 2, 2003

Elle Wood gave a law firm highlights in "Legally Blonde." In "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde," she gives America a makeover.

The sequel isn't as funny or fresh as the original, but it should please Elle fans anyway because it still has Reese Witherspoon. This is one of those perfect pairings of an actor with a role; Witherspoon clearly understands every aspect of Elle, the Type A sorority girl who is confident her uncanny knack for accessorizing can help make America a better, more color-coordinated place. Elle's best weapon is that she is always underestimated, but her dizziness and pinkness disguise the fact that she will get what she wants no matter how hard she has to work for it.

In this case, what she wants is to pass a bill banning the testing of cosmetics on animals. Elle has moved to Washington, bringing with her enough shoes to shod both houses of Congress, and she's working as a lobbyist for a congresswoman played by Sally Field. It's a mean town, Elle learns, but she figures out a way to conquer it Elle-style just as "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" conquered it Mr. Smith-style. The main difference would be that, unlike Jimmy Stewart, Reese Witherspoon has the perfect pores of an infant raised in an extremely humid climate.

It's an ice cream soda of a movie, frothy and fun. The politics correspond to nothing that actually happens in the capital (a working knowledge of the Schoolhouse Rock song, "I'm Just a Bill," seems to be Elle's primary qualification for her job), but this is not the Congressional Record, and it's close enough for comedy.

True, "Legally Blonde 2" would be better if it had some of the subtlety of the first. The humor is sometimes as flat and one-note as Elle's pink-on-pink-with-pink-trim outfits, and Elle's sidekick, played by the invaluable Jennifer Coolidge, is now a dope instead of the intriguingly off-center ditz she was in the first one.

But the good news is that the humor is completely devoid of cynicism; Elle cares about changing the world almost as much as she cares about finding a painless way to wax her legs.

That's a nice metaphor for this feel-good movie, come to think of it. Like Elle's legs and the cosmetics she champions, the comedy in "Legally Blonde 2" is, refreshingly, 100 percent cruelty-free.

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