5.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Reese Witherspoon is back as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. Now Elle is juggling a demanding career as a rising young lawyer as well as preparations for her wedding to the man of her dreams. But when she stands up for the rights of the other guy in her life - Bruiser, her chihuahua - Elle is fired from her job. She's devastated, but you can't keep an optimist down. Ms. Woods goes to Washington to take matters into her own well-manicured hands. Trying to learn the political ropes and win over self-serving politicians, Elle faces a formidable challenge. But with her clever and sassy signature blend of determination and intelligence, she bucks the system the Elle Woods way, inspiring those around her to find a voice of their own.
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Regina King, Jennifer Coolidge, Luke WilsonComedy | 100% |
Romance | 62% |
Teen | 29% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: DTS 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
If you headed to the multiplex for 2003’s July 4th weekend, you had two options for oversized patriotic nonsense: Terminator 3—because, let’s face it, few things are more American than watching stuff get blown up—and Legally Blond 2: Red, White, and Blond, a kind of ditzy, pink jewel-bedazzled Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. While targeted to drastically different audiences, both movies are big and dumb and unnecessary in their own spectacular ways, and both are prime examples of Hollywood’s soulless, sequel-as-guaranteed-moneymaker mentality. Terminator 3 is at least watchable, and so is the first Legally Blond—a sleeper hit, equal parts spunky and sweet—but Legally Blond 2 is a cinematic chore, as artificial as a dye job, as cringe-worthily painful as a Brazilian waxing. The film pulled in an impressive $40 million at the box office its first weekend, but poor word of mouth quickly ushered it out of theaters.
Capitol Barbie
For a film about a woman who's impeccably put together, Legally Blond 2: Red, White, and Blond is something of a mess on Blu-ray, where it debuts with a soft and sometimes murky 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer. As with their recent release of Taxi, it looks to me—and this is just a guess—like 20th Century Fox simply recycled an old high definition master that had been prepared for the film's DVD release. The first thing you'll notice is that the image rarely exhibits any truly fine detail. Part of this may be intentional—perhaps sections of the film were shot with a softening, skin- flattering diffusion filter, I'm not sure—but the main culprit seems to be the use of some light digital noise reduction to smooth out some of the picture's rougher, grainier patches. Grain is still partially visible—the image doesn't have that smeary, waxy Predator re-issue quality—but it doesn't look as rich or natural as it should. Overall, the level of clarity is not what you'd expect from the Blu-ray release of a film from the early-to-mid 2000s. On the plus side, color is certainly vibrant, with a prevalence of bubble gum pinks and other similarly saturated hues. You'll see that highlights are frequently blown out on Reese Witherspoon's hair, but if you watch the film's making-of documentary, the cinematographer talks about how this was intentional, an attempt to give Elle Woods a glowing aura of sorts. Whatever.
Things are much better on the audio front, with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround track that's relatively strong, stable, and well-balanced. Granted, this isn't the kind of track that will set your sub-woofer throbbing or fill the space around you with all manner of directionally and acoustically accurate effects, but for a lightweight comedy, it gets the job done. The rear channels are mostly used to bleed the various pop songs that pepper the film—which all have plenty of clarity and heft—but you will hear occasional Washington D.C. street sounds, immersive chatter during a Congressional hearing, echo in a legislative chamber, and other quiet but appreciated ambience. Rolfe Kent's score screams "whimsy," so the less said about that the better, but it at least sounds clear and, when needed, forceful. Dialogue throughout is clean, high in the mix, and easy to understand.
There are a lot of people who like Legally Blond 2. I know some of them. They're nice people. Good folk. I just hope I'm never invited to any of their houses for a movie night. Unless you're one of these inexplicable fans, you'll want to stay far away from this Blu-ray release, and even if you are a Legally Blond-aholic, you'll probably be disappointed by the film's sub-par high definition transfer.
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