- Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corporation (MGM)
- Release Date: Jul 13, 2001
- Critic Score
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80If this Popsicle of a movie melts long before it's over, the first half has more good laughs than all of “Sweethearts.”
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Thanks to Ms. Witherspoon's artful portrayal of a winning, if beachless, Gidget, I found Legally Blonde very enjoyable.
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80Blondes may or may not have more fun, but in this one case, they certainly provide more fun.
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80In a perfect marriage of player and part, Reese Witherspoon is Elle Woods.
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75A featherweight comedy balanced between silliness and charm.
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75Witherspoon goes further, pouring so much humor and pizzazz into Elle that she lifts up the whole movie.
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75Smart screwball comedy that upends the stereotype of the airhead towhead.
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75Guilty of inciting a near-laugh riot thanks to an irresistible leading lady whose comic instincts are as impeccable as her manicure.
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75Imagine the sequel to "Clueless" reconceived as a peroxide "Paper Chase" and punched up with a valley girl version of "My Cousin Vinny" for the climax.
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70Witherspoon turns in yet another stellar, nuanced comic performance.
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70With her ductile physicality and undeniable charm, Witherspoon remains acutely present even when everyone else -- director, writers and cast -- has checked out.
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67Somewhere in that chirpy half-pint frame dwell some meaty comic chops. Goldie Hawn may have found her successor.
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67She may be follically blond, but as an actor of distinction who's all of 25, Reese Witherspoon reveals interesting dark roots even as she plays golden girls.
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67Alas, the movie just isn't bouncy, fresh or funny enough. It's just not blonde enough.
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63Unashamedly sticks with its light comedy roots.
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63Like all blond jokes, Legally Blonde is basically meanspirited, and that's when it's funniest.
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63There's always Witherspoon, swimming upstream and never letting it slow her down. Blindingly purposeful, she's a perky blond tornado. Marilyn Monroe would not only have cheered her on. She'd have learned something.
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63A smart comedy about a smart blonde -- that would be a sensation. But a dumb comedy about a smart blonde turns out to be not bad.
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60Witherspoon's sophisticated-pixie brilliance practically makes the movie, and her easy, confident, curvaceous carriage doesn't hurt, either -- she's the thinking guy's cupcake, maybe because her mind is just as supple as her curves.
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60Witherspoon -- though miles from the keen satire of "Election" -- stays one sharp cookie even as her film crumbles.
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60I half-admire its exquisite balancing act, squeezing laughs out of its leading lady's wardrobe, vocabulary, gestures, and cretinously oblivious Beverly Hills sense of entitlement, while simultaneously demonstrating her brilliance, sturdy ethics, and unflappable egalitarianism.
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60The mildly engaging silliness of its premise is never transformed into something more substantial, and the attempt at a fine-tuned "Clueless"-like tone is only sputteringly achieved.
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50Witherspoon fills the screen with bright-eyed bounce. The rest of the cast is as forgettable as the flimsy story.
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50Merely a watery, poorly directed update of "Clueless."
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50Benefits enormously from smart casting across the board.
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50A junk-food movie striving to be nutritious -- it's one of your racier Be Yourself after-school specials crossed with 'Who Moved My Cheese?" for Cosmo girls.
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50Guilty of squandering resources. Amusing as it goes about setting up its premise, in Witherspoon, the gifted veteran of "Election" and "Pleasantville," it has an actress willing to throw herself completely into the part to excellent effect.
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50The character as written is incoherent, but Ms. Witherspoon has the reflexes to make Elle both appealing and ridiculous. It's funny -- in that slightly queasy, un-P.C. Doris Day kind of way.
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40That's just not enough to recommend it, though it does have one moment of real justice: The person sentenced to jail has truly bad hair.
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40Really nothing more than "Clueless" redux but without the edgy, knowing wit.
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40The muddiness of the basic concept and the thinness of its execution eventually defeat even Witherspoon's talents.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 32 out of 38
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Mixed: 1 out of 38
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Negative: 5 out of 38
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10
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Any early potential this film has as a comedy gets drowned out quickly by the self-indulgent, preachy whine of "See? Girls can do smart stuff too!"