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  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.85:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer ( )
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  • Commentary - English: Dolby Digital Stereo
  Subtitles
    Hebrew, Greek, Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese, English - Hearing Impaired, Turkish, Icelandic, Croatian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Slovenian
  Extras
  • 7 Deleted scenes
  • Theatrical trailer
  • 5 Featurette - Blonde Ambition, Pretty In Pink, Stars and Stripes, Never!, Hair Apparent, Elle's Anthem
  • Photo gallery - 38 snaps
  • Music video - LeAnn Rimes
  • Interactive game - Delta Nu Quiz
  • Trivia track
  • Gag reel

Legally Blonde 2 - Red White & Blonde

20th Century Fox/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 91 mins . M15+ . PAL

  Feature
Contract

Sequels are always dangerous. Taking what was (probably) written as a one-shot and expanding the story into yet another full-length tale can be fraught with danger. The fans don’t want anything better than the first one (“Why didn’t you give us this first, you Hollywood bastards?”) nor do they want it weaker (“You destroyed the whole storyline, you Hollywood bastards!”).

So what’s a multi-million dollar studio to do?

That’s right, attempt to do exactly the same thing (to strains of, “Cheesus, you haven’t even changed the formula, you Hollywood bastards!”).

So you can see the bind they’re in.

Elle Woods, now a lawyer helping people win stuff in the law, wants to celebrate something by helping her dog, Bruiser, find his mother. After extensive research by a private investigator (arriving with mum’s whereabouts just moments later) it is found she lives in a vivisection lab being tested on for cosmetics.

Elle to the rescue!

Deciding she doesn’t have the legal backing to take on a global corporation and also getting fired, she hooks up with an ex-fraternity sister and goes to Washington to stop animal testing.

"One honest voice can be louder than a crowd..."

Sigh. It’s fraught with quotes like the one above and, naturally, Elle pulls all the same stunts to get her message across, learning lessons and realising truths along the way.

For anyone who enjoyed the first film, this has attempted to do exactly the same thing as that, but falls short and becomes yet another sequel that disappoints because the one foundation that kept the first afloat has been removed.

However, Reese Witherspoon is always fantastic, if not overly challenged as an actor and keeps us interested enough to maintain watching for the entire 91-minute duration. The teenage girl market that this is aimed at will no doubt enjoy it as non-thinking fluff or as a vehicle to bitch at, but I can’t see many people being as impressed (if that were possible) as they were with the original.

  Video
Contract

Recently shot and transferred there is a fairly nice picture quality here. There are one or two artefacts, surprisingly, but nothing too major or disruptive. I’m always surprised, however, that while they’re printing the film for distribution, they don’t just set one aside for the DVD transfer. Surely that would keep it spotless?

Anyway, the 1.85:1 cinema ratio with anamorphic enhancement looks great and all those pinks and purples come across just fine. Lines are sharp, flesh tones are fine and shadow detail is also neat, although there are very few shadows in Elle’s world.

  Audio
Contract

Dolby Digital 5.1 does the trick here and we receive no major troubles with the sound. Dialogue is all understood and while a little vapid or just plain childish at times, there are no difficulties in figuring it out.

Music has been penned by Rolfe Kent, who has spent a lot of time creating big, brassy, congress-sized outings to support the story. These sound fine and work through the surrounds nicely, although the levels between music and dialogue are a little out of whack, dominating the dialogue sometimes. Other than that, though, all sound fine here and suitable for the film’s mood.

  Extras
Contract

Quite a thick batch to wade through here, with even a funny little Easter Egg you can read about in our Eggo section.

First up is the pissweak and tacked on audio commentary featuring three supporting players. No crew, no major cast. Sad. While having its moments of levity, it isn’t worth much at all. Thanks for that.

A making-of featurette entitled Blonde Ambition runs for 22:27 next and this is your usual fare, with interviews and even a veer into part mockumentary territory at times. Of interesting note is that Reese is interviewed twice; once as actor: Elle Woods, and the other as executive producer. This also includes some scenes that weren’t in the final cut of the film. Isn’t that interesting?

Four featurettes entitled Pretty in Pink, Stars and Stripes, Never!, Hair Apparent and Elle’s Anthem all run around the seven minute mark and deal with designing the film, costuming, hair design and scoring respectively. Worth a look and do give us a deeper understanding of the film’s intention that is rather easy to overlook throughout the movie.

Next up are seven deleted scenes that include the original opening sequence. All are in 1.85:1 sans enhancement and are bookended with context. Follow that with the aptly titled gag reel running for 2:40 with nothing of great interest in it.

A music video from LeAnn Rimes with TV Soundtrack Spot skims by before the 2:01 trailer to get us to the Delta Nu Interactive Quiz. I got some wrong on this and thought I’d beaten the game, but I got assessed at the end and failed dismally. Now I’ll never be President!

And we finish up with a 38 pic photo gallery that details shots from the film and behind the scenes. Plus, of course, that scrummy Easter egg which is actually kind of a highlight after revisiting those extras.

Oh, and one last thing... there seems to be some sort of authoring error on the subtitles page where it takes two or three down sweeps to move down the list of languages. Not sure what the hell is going on there, but it is definitely present between two couples of language names.

  Overall  
Contract

Director of Kissing Jessica Stein Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, has done what he could with the script here and for the most part the film is watchable, but beware if you have diabetes. Not sure what might happen to you watching this.

While certainly not brain food, this does have its moments of laughter, but not many come from Elle herself. While Reese can deliver a line with the best of them, her entourage seem to get all the gaffs here, leaving her as the ‘serious’ spokesperson of the film.

Oh well. You can’t tell me you expected rocket science.


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      And I quote...
    "More of the same here, though just not quite as well done as the original."
    - Jules Faber
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Teac DVD-990
    • TV:
          Sony 51cm
    • Speakers:
          Teac PLS-60 Home Theatre System
    • Centre Speaker:
          Teac PLS-60 Home Theatre System
    • Surrounds:
          Teac PLS-60 Home Theatre System
    • Subwoofer:
          Akai
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard RCA
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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