Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003)

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) is getting married to Emmett Richmond (Luke Wilson). She goes in search of her dog Bruiser Woods' parents for the wedding. She finds Bruiser's mom being tested on at V.E.R.S.A.C.E. When she objects, she's let go from her law firm. She decides to go to Washington D.C. to change the law for animal testing. She gets to work for fellow alumni Rep. Victoria Rudd (Sally Field).The first movie had the charm of something completely original. I liked the first one enough but this one doesn't have the possibility of taking us by surprise. The idea seems old now. The movie tries to put Elle Woods in the most unlikely place again. So they twist a story out of shape to put her there and make DC out to be something unreal. It isn't quite as funny anymore. At least it's not funny intentionally.

As a fan of Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde's predecessor, I avoided watching this sequel until today, and for good reason it seems. The rumours (and reviews) are true. This is an awful sequel to what was an otherwise clever and cute movie that recognised it's flaws but made light of them. This movie fails to do that, and instead ends up becoming what the first film tried to avoid: a shallow story following the unbelievable events of a caricature of a character. People who have not watched Legally Blonde 1 will not be aware of this contrast and so might view this movie differently, which seems to explain why the majority of good reviews here come from these exact same people. LB2 follows Elle Woods (Reese Withersproon), a Harvard Law graduate who is fired from her position in a prestigious Law Firm for trying to champion animal rights, after discovering that her dog Bruiser's mother is being used as a test subject in a cosmetics company. In order to have her dog's mum attend her wedding to Emmett (Luke Wilson), she heads to Washington D.C and joins the team of Congresswoman Victoria Rudd (Sally Field) to learn the ins and outs of Washington politics and to pass her 'Bruisers Bill' through congress that would see an end to the legal status of animal testing. This movie just utterly fails to capture the audience's hearts with it's preachy message, lacklustre humour and unrelatable characters who we once used to love. Gone is the Elle Woods who learned to overcome prejudice and grew into a strong-willed, self-assured, smart woman. Instead, Elle is a vapid, loudmouthed airhead who still lets people's impressions of her get her down. I thought that she would be a seasoned pro when it came to this now, but apparently she only learned how to overcome bad remarks within the University framework and nowhere beyond that. The character of Elle is a shadow of her former glory and loses that 'heart' that she had in the first film. Now all she cares about is getting a dog to attend her wedding? And this is important, how? When she first trawls into the investigators office with a proposition to find her, I was honestly left scratching my head wondering, "why?". But no. The whole film centres on her apparently gay dog Bruiser and his mum. While the idea of enrolling at university to reclaim a lost love seems unbelievable in itself, the way they executed her motives in the first film made it seem so. This time round it's just too far. Some characters from the first movie make an appearance; Emmett, who didn't even need to be in this film as he is just useless here, and her beautician friend who took a downgrade from ditsy to nearly mentally defunct for whatever reason. All of them lose their appeal and whatever relatability they had.I could have suffered through this movie if it even tried to be clever and funny but instead all we get is shallow cheap jokes and dog humour. Oh, and cheer leading in front of congress. I'm serious. I felt insulted by watching this and almost guilty that I was a fan of LB1. Was this really the character I loved and thought was endearing from the first installment? Oh my, what a fool I was. The script is severely lacking in originality and cleverness, the overall message is unnecessarily preachy and vapid, and the characters are lame. A lot of wasted opportunities with a good cast including Sally Fields and Bob Newhart.I wish I had never watched this sequel because it has now rubbed the shine off the original for me. This is just a sad, sad attempt to milk the cash cow and in doing so the creators of this film have milked everything that made the first film good and turned it sour and unpalatable. I'd give this a zero out of 10 if I could.

I was lucky to see this movie before I saw the first Legally Blonde, and though it was silly, I quite enjoyed it.The "doggy dance" was the funniest bit for me. Never mind the cheerleaders, the guys, especially the big guy in the middle, are great! I replayed that bit about five times and it made me laugh every time.Unfortunately, for every good bit in this movie there is a cringe-worthy one. Like the leather-clad dog couple (sorry, but I don't want to see cute dogs wearing that), the snap cup song (oh my God), and Elle's "hair" speech at the end... I'm easy-going but that was lame. Oh, and that overly done princess desk at the office. No girl over the age of 13 is going to want a desk like that.Actually, this was quite terrible. But if you are going to sit through it, don't despair. Bear with it and eventually the doggy dance will come along! The lighting was also very pretty in this movie. They've made Elle shine in pink and golden light. You could have this playing mutely in the background and it would be something nice to look at every now and then. Also, Reese Witherspoon is very pretty, goes through a lot of yummy costumes and has great hair (though I found out later it was a wig). So, you can enjoy this just don't take it seriously AT ALL.

The first film, the ditsy blonde is bearable and there is a good plot, but this sequel is completely pointless. Basically Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) is now a Harvard lawyer who is looking forward to her marriage to Emmett Richmond (Luke Wilson), and wants everyone that matters to her to be there, this includes the mother of her treasured pet dog, Bruiser. She does find the mother, and she is being used to test cosmetic products, and she is now working hard to try and put a stop to all animal testing. She writes "The Bruiser Bill", and she needs 218 signatures to get her bill voted on. In the end, she succeeds, even getting slightly bitchy Rep./Congresswoman Victoria Rudd (Sally Field) to support her, Bruiser gets his mother, and the wedding is the happy ending. Also starring Jerry Maguire's Regina King as Grace Rossiter, American Pie's Jennifer Coolidge as Paulette Parcelle, Bruce McGill as Stanford Marks, Dana Ivey as Congresswoman Libby Hauser, Mary Lynn Rajskub as Reena Giuliani, Jessica Cauffiel as Margot, Alanna Ubach as Serena McGuire, J Barton as Timothy McGinn, Elf's Bob Newhart as Sid Post and Stripshow's Tane McClure as Elle's Mother. Witherspoon is even ditsier than the previous film, which makes her less lovable, the story is pretty dumb too, only the tiniest, tiniest moments made me giggle, but it is not one to see more than once. Adequate!