By Margaret A. McGurk
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde 2 | ZOOM |

Let me be perfectly clear about one thing: Reese Witherspoon is a certifiable talent, and one of the best young comic actors at work in movies today.

That said, it is a painful disappointment to see her stuck in a dog like Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde.

It is also no surprise that she is the movie's only saving grace. Even when, for instance, she is reciting dialogue that creaks with cliches, or giving her bubbliest best to scenes that do not connect with one another on any rational level, she inhabits the screen like a true movie star. You could watch her sort socks and be entertained.

The story picks up awhile after the end of the dizzy and delightful 2001 original. Hyper-optimist and sorority-sister-for-life Elle Woods (Witherspoon) has parlayed her Harvard Law School degree into a promising job in a big Boston firm, and launched a massive planning project for her upcoming nuptials to brainy boyfriend Emmett (Luke Wilson).

MOVIE REVIEW

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde (PG-13; some sex-related humor) Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Bob Newhart, Luke Wilson, Jennifer Coolidge. Directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld. 94 minutes. AMC 20, Cinema 10, Danbarry Middletown, Great Escape 14, National Amusements Rave West Chester.

Things fall apart when, in the course of tracking down the mother of her Chihuahua Bruiser for a wedding invitation (I am not making this up), she encounters a lab where cosmetics are tested on animals. Lickety-split, she's in Washington on the staff of Rep. Rudd (Sally Field), trying to get a bill passed to outlaw such testing. In three months.

Many, many witless and contrived events later, she triumphs on all fronts.

Sounds mutton-headed, doesn't it? It is.

Directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld from a script cobbled together by four credited writers, the story is a flimsy pastiche of ideas cribbed from The West Wing and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington wrapped in fragments from the first Legally Blonde.

Several characters exist, apparently, only to remind the audience how much more engaging the first film was. Wilson has nothing to do but pop up from time to time to tell Elle she can do anything she wants.

Bob Newhart has not one decent joke as the doorman who becomes Elle's behind-the-scenes adviser. The fleeting appearances of the marvelous Jennifer Coolidge, returning as beautician Paulette Bonfonte, amount to a criminal waste of talent.

The filmmakers are so devoid of comic inspiration that they devote significant time to declaring a pair of dogs homosexual and dressing them in silly fetish gear. It's a pretty reliable signal that a movie is hopeless when it resorts to putting costumes on animals for laughs.

Witherspoon's charisma is a rare commodity that shouldn't be squandered on hooey like Legally Blonde 2. She's better than this.

E-mail mmcgurk@enquirer.com