Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003): 5 out of 10: Elle Woods returns after the surprise hit that was Legally Blonde. This time she is in Washington D.C. trying to get a billed passed to ban animal testing for cosmetics. Will Elle win over Congress as easily as she won over Harvard?
The Good
The Good: Bob Newhart is in this. I like Bob Newhart.
The film is so wonderfully incorrect in so many ways it borders on a camp classic. It is the basic Showgirls conundrum. It is a horrific car wreck. Why am I still watching? Am I actually entertained by the sheer audacity in making something so wonderfully tone deaf?
The Bad
The Bad: Where to begin… where to begin. The jokes don’t land. Not some of the jokes don’t land mind you none of the jokes lands. It is a cringefest that reminds one of watching Caddyshack II in stunned silence and disbelief on how that film got everything so wrong.
There is a scene where the congressional aides do a cheerleader dance that is simply something out of the deepest recesses of the Id to the point that one suspects the script was punched up by William Burroughs.
The Ugly
The Ugly: Elle Woods finds out her dog is gay. In the next scene, the dog is dressed like Rob Halford. This is something one might expect from a French farce from the 1980s, not a progressive modern comedy. Then again, the first Legally Blonde hinged on Elle outing a pool boy because he recognized her fabulous shoes. Hmmm. I am seeing a trend here.
In Conclusion
In Conclusion: I was becoming bemused watching this film. By the time it recreated the Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March but substituted Black Men with blonde girls dressed in pink walking dogs, I was amazed.
I liked the first Legally Blonde more than I thought I would. It was a cartoon true, but the lead character was well drawn and the entire enterprise had a sweetness about it. The sequel’s problem is not so much it does not have also have these strengths. The sequel’s problem is it takes place in Alice’s Wonderland filled with Mad Hatters where conservative Republican congressman talks about how they love their gay dog and horrible hairdressing gets votes.
This is a train wreck that would be the subject of weeks of Jezebel and Guardian think pieces with finger-wagging had it been released today. It is a borderline entertaining train wreck.