by FRANCES GRANT
(Herald rating: * * )
The blonde fights back against the dumb stereotype in this mildly amusing campus comedy, although as blondes-can-be-smart propaganda it's not terribly convincing.
Think of it as Clueless' Cher, graduated from high school and ready to throw over the Fashion Studies 101 and get to law
school. Elle (Witherspoon) is the quintessential Malibu Barbie awaiting her Ken doll's proposal. When her boyfriend dumps her because she's not a serious prospect for a wannabe lawyer and congressman, Elle digs her polished toenails in and determines to prove him wrong.
After a few nights over the books and some missed frat parties, Elle manages somehow to pull off a place at Harvard. Seems entrance video applications starring a babe in spangly bikini is all it takes to turn the heads of the eminent professors of America's most prestigious law school.
From there it's all sexy West v dowdy East Coast of the United States gags as Elle's natty outfits, airhead ways and lust for socialising has jaws dropping all round the dingy twinset and tweed campus.
The other students - the ones who got in with PhDs - are all insufferable geeks and Elle eventually manages to start getting the better of them in the classroom, although she's so busy bonding with her manicurist it's hard to figure out when she gets time to crack open the books.
The action is all terribly predictable: Elle wins her way to a place on her professor's murder trial team - a case in which she has the inside running because the defendant is just as blonde and Californian as herself.
The court action provides a forum for a few good lines, sadly lacking in the rest of the movie, which eventually gets bogged down in a sexual harassment plotline before coming to a groan-inducing end.
As Elle, Witherspoon gives Legally Blonde the bright breeziness of a drive down a palm-lined highway with the top down, but the comedy would have been much stronger if this blonde had been given a lot more bottle.
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Matt Davis
Director: Robert Luketic
Rating: PG (sexual references)
Running time: 95 mins
Screening: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas
