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 Director
: Robert Luketic
Starring
: Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair, Jennifer Coolidge, Matthew
Davis, Victor Garber and Luke Wilson.
Picture
2.35:1 & 1.33:1, DD 5.1, Double-Side, Single Layer,
Keep Case
Running
Time : 96 mins
The
story:
Boldly
going where no blonde has gone.
Elle
Woods (Reece Witherspoon) is living the high-life at her
California
high-school with the perfect clothes, perfect life and gorgeus
boyfriend. But even the schools most popular girl is having
boyfriend troubles. When
Warner Huntington III ( Matthew Davis) drops the bombshell
that she's dumped and he's off to Harvard Law School, Elle
has to make some drastic decisions
about her life. Warner thinks he needs a more serious girlfriend
to help his career, but Elle's knows he's making a mistake
and is determined to win back her man. She must get into
Harvard too and prove she can be serious too, but it's not
going to be easy at Harvard, especially for a pretty blonde!
The
summary:
Our
first impressions of Legally Blonde was that this was "Clueless
2", a high-school dumb-blonde comedy affair complete
with a good-looking cast and hip one-liners. Well, whilst
they certainly share some similarities, Legally Blonde has
far more depth to it's fluffy pink exterior. The script
is surprisingly clever although by comparisons to Clueless
this wouldn't be hard to achieve. But, there's good story
here and although the plot is basically a girl-does-good
one, there's plenty of laughs to be had along the way.
Reese
Witherspoon is the highlight of the film and shows what
a talented young star she is fast becoming. Oozing confidence,
Reese showcases her talent with a commanding performance
and seems perfectly suited to this particular role. Starting
off in the blonde-bimbo role, she cleverly develops her
character into a dedicated law-school student which is actually
more demanding on the acting skills than you might think.
As well as the smart one-liners, when emotion is called
for, Reese delivers perfectly. The supporting cast are also
terrific, including the bitchy Selma Blair (her co-star
from Cruel Intentions) and the charismatic Matthew Davis.
There really is no downside to this film, it does exactly
what it sets out to do and that is entertain.
MGM
/ UA have done a nice job with this release, managing to
cram a good amount of extra's onto the disc along with the
totally unnecessary fullscreen transfer. Quite why this
seems to be making a comeback is a mystery to me, perhaps
someone could explain? The transfer is very good quality
and certainly looks good with it's bold bright colours and
detailed picture. Comedy soundtracks are never going to
break any new ground and this one is no exception, but it
does the job and that's the main thing. Legally Blonde was
a hit at the box office and thanks to MGM, it'll will be
a hit on DVD too!
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Extras:
*
Deleted Scenes
- 8 Deleted scenes, mostly fairly short sequences but they
all features an intro from the Director explaining why they
were cut. The directors involement makes the scenes far
more facsinating than they would otherwise have been. If
only all deleted-scenes on discs featured this! 15 minutes
total running time.
*
Inside Legally Blonde
- A bit like the HBO making-of's this is a 21 minute extended-trailer,
full of promotional stuff but also featuring a few good
interview snippets and some outtakes.
*
The Hair That Ate Hollywood
- Did you know that Reese had some 40 different hairstyles
throughout the film? This 9 minute featurette takes a look
at them with the hair-stylists. Quite fun, but no real lasting
quality.
*
Audio Commentary #1
- This first commentary with director Robert Luketic, producer
Marc Platt, and star Reese Witherspoon is the best of the
2 commentaries from a 'fun' point of view, but also contains
a good insight into the film.
*
Audio Commentary #2
- The second commentary features Sophie de Rakoff Carbonell
(costume designer), Melissa Stewart (production designer),
Anthony Richmond (director of photography), Sue Chipperton
(animal trainer) and screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and
Kirsten Smith. Perhaps worth the once-over but outshone
by the first commentary.
*
Music Video
- The excellent hit music video "Perfect Day" by Hoku
*
Trivia Track
- Watch the film with 'pop-up-video' type trivia notes.
Contains some interesting facts about the film and cast
but mostly it's just irrelevent trivia. I can't imagine
anyone sticking it for a whole 96 minutes..
*
Theatrical Trailers
- The theatrical trailer plus a trailer for "The Princess
Bride".
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