Posted: 07/18/2003

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde

(2003)

by Hope Villanueva

A movie only a blonde could love…

I was coerced into watching the first Legally Blonde movie against my will. A dumb blonde with the sorority girl mindset was not anything I was remotely interested in. But after watching Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods take down her ego-man boyfriend, hook up with the charming Luke Wilson and get her Harvard law degree against all odds, I couldn’t help myself. I’d had a really good time.

I wish Red, White and Blonde had the same effect on me. In fact, the exact opposite happened. I went in, eagerly awaiting more adventures of the brighter-than-she-thought-she-was Elle and found, sadly, that our chipper Harvard grad was now reduced to the very thing I wanted avoid by not seeing the first movie: an air-headed little sorority girl.

The cast is first rate. Played by anyone else, Elle Woods would be so annoying that she would quickly be added to the lost of characters everyone would like to see burned in effigy (or reality), alongside Barney the Dinosaur, Elmo and Tinkey-Winkey. But Reese Witherspoon injects this character with such well meaning and honesty that we take to her right away. Jennifer Coolidge is bubbly and fun as the bimbo-ish best friend and cohort. Sally Field and Regina King bring strength and wisdom and Dana Ivey is a great choice as the sour-puss Delta-Nu turned state representative. Luke Wilson could have phoned in his lines, and does, but is a welcome presence. However, even great actors can’t save a weak script.

Admittedly, the script is trying very hard to be what the audience thinks it wants. We want to see Elle’s hair-brained scheming lead her to success. We want to see outfits so pink and so ridiculous that she looks like a living Barbie doll. We want the follow up to her romance storyline with Luke Wilson. And we do want to see her beat the odds. And perhaps that is its downfall.

Red, White and Blonde gave us all of this and somehow, left this reviewer feeling empty. Was there something we forgot to ask for? Were the outfits not pink enough? No, actually, they were. So what went wrong?

The reason audiences fell in love with Elle Woods in the first film was not because she was cute or funny, though undiscerning audiences probably thought that was why. Elle is appealing because we saw her start off as a vapid, superficial brat who was completely taken off her high horse by her boyfriend deeming her “too dumb.” And she was dumb. Seeing someone get their comeuppance is always enjoyable. But the movie went further. Elle didn’t sit back and feel badly for herself. She set out to accomplish all the things no one thought she could, fighting all the way to her law degree. And in the process, she learned how smart and valuable she really was. Because of her ability to dust herself off and rediscover her strengths, audiences fell in love with her. The rest was icing.

The new film showed us a new Elle, determined to beat the system again for the side of good. She found her way into a state representative’s staff and spearheaded a disliked bill all the way to the top. At every step, there were people who stood in her way.

For two seconds. Elle flashed her little smile and had her friends wiggle their assets and got the votes she needed. There was no real danger of Elle failing in this Peptol Bismol version of Washington. The worst thing that happened was that her desk got a little cluttered. There was no growth or self-discovery this time around, so Elle existed in her happy little pink bubble, untouched by anything. And this was not what we needed to see from her.

Since the movie industry is so set on the concept of the triple movie franchise right now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see one more Legally Blonde movie, and from the way this one ends, I’ll bet Elle will be running for office herself. I was unimpressed by this movie, but I know there is the old Elle Woods in there someplace. We can only hope they let her out to play next time around.

Hope Villanueva is a Los Angeles thespian who went to a few sorority houses during Rush Week in college. She decided she’d rather make her friends for free and spend the money on going to the movies. Find out more about her theatrical career at Namaste Theatre.

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