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Reese Witherspoon brightens up the screen with her incredible smile as Elle, a sunny California girl all set to marry her high school sweetheart, a dullard with the unfortunate name of Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis.) Alright, first clue to Reese - why would you even think of marrying anyone with the words "Warner," "Huntington," or "III" in their name, let alone all three? Anyway - and how dare one even think it - Warner dumps poor Elle for her evil adversary Selma Blair, and heads off to Harvard Law School. So, what's a young go-getter like Elle to do? In grand 90's stalking fashion (so last decade, if you ask me) Reese hightails it on after him, although there's just one little problem...

Whipping up a rather, um, inventive method to gain admittance, Reese wastes no time in painting Harvard pink, winning her man (though not the one she might have thought) and foiling a dastardly plot hatched by her evil professor (the underrated Victor Garber.) Does any of this surprise you, or sound remotely plausible? Of course not. But, then Legally Blonde is not about great plotting but bright colors, great clothes, and smart laughs. And on those counts, it delivers in spades, and it is easy to see why the film raked it in this past summer at the box office.

But all the Day-Glo colors and great clothes in the world will only get you so far, and it is the cast that really shines here. Witherspoon is a mega-star in waiting, and the camera just adores her pug-dog, highly- emotive face, and she sure knows how to deliver a great one-liner. Equally smart are Selma Blair and Ali Larter as her scheming enemies, and Jennifer Coolidge as a fellow confidante. While I'm not a big fan of Davis (perhaps hoping to erase Urban Legends: Final Cut from his resume?) or Luke Wilson - likely the dullest actor to continue to win major roles in Hollywood - Garber is great as the oily professor. And despite the obviousness of the script, director Robert Luketic keeps the pace snappy and crafts some eye-popping widescreen compositions. While it never rose to the more inspired heights of a Clueless or Desperately Seeking Susan for my money, Legally Blonde is still a lot of fun.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen (a pan & scan transfer is also included, but why would you want to watch that?) the image is pure eye candy. Awash in unbelievably bright, unreal colors, the pastel hues are this transfer's most striking feature. Colors are rock solid and perfectly saturated, with no bleeding, smearing or noise to distract. Overall sharpness and contrast are also excellent, with deep, rich blacks and a surprisingly lack of edge enhancement. While the print is free of defects, I was a bit surprised at the thin veil of grain throughout, but it was not overly distracting. The only major flaw, however, with this transfer is the rather frequent amount of compression artifacts I spotted, which is likely due to MGM also cramming a separate pan & scan version on the same side of the disc. With a film as good-looking as this, why ruin it by cropping them??

Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?

Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, Legally Blonde suffers from what we here at DVDFILE often call "comedy soundtrack-itis." For some reason, if a film isn't a big action blockbuster, the mix suddenly becomes subdued and uninteresting. While overall fidelity and dynamics are excellent, surround use is only fairly aggressive with subtle envelopment at best. Stereo separation is most pronounced among the front channels, especially with the music and song score. Overall balance between the music, effects and dialogue is good, with only spare use of the rears for ambient effects and some music cues. Low end is solid, with decent deep bass though not exceptional. Not a bad track at all, if ordinary, but it serves the film just fine.

French and Spanish 2.0 surround tracks are also included, along with English, French and Spanish subtitles and English Closed Captions.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Presented on a double-sided disc, with the main feature on side one and most of the extras on the other, MGM has put together a nice batch of extras that are as fun and frothy as the film itself.

First up on side one are not one but three alternate audio and subtitle tracks. Let's start with the colorful Trivia Track, which I accidentally flipped on first by mistake. Much like VH-1's "Pop-Up Video," watch the cute little multi-hue balloon boxes pop onscreen with entertaining little factoids on the film, the cast and the clothes. I have to admit I'm a sucker for these types of things, perhaps because it makes sitting on the couch with a bag of Snickers bars all the more enjoyable...

More substantial are the two screen-specific audio commentaries. The first is with director Robert Luketic, producer Mark Platt and actor Reese Witherspoon. While this is a bit slow going at first, all eventually find a nice rhythm and we get an entertaining, even bouncy tour of the making the film, (though Witherspoon sometimes sounds as if she's not so much having fun as fulfilling an obligation.) Truth be told, while the first track is fun, I enjoyed the second even better. Essentially two mini-commentaries spliced together in the middle, the first half features costume designer Sophie de Rakoff Carbonell, production designer Melissa Stewart and director of photography Anthony B. Richmond, then the second stars screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith and animal trainer Sue Chipperton. Listening to the whole track, I can't even remember Richmond and Chipperton talking at all, though the rest make up for any omissions. I actually learned more about putting together the film this second time around, and all seemed to have a great experience making the film and coming up with its pretty as pink visual style. Fun stuff.

Flip the disc over and you'll find even more goodies. First up are 8 deleted scenes, complete with video intros by Luketic. Presented in non- anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen, the quality of the clips is good though the audio marginal. These scenes are charming but ultimately short and insubstantial, although "Rollerblading" and "Elle's Revenge" gave me a laugh. All told, the deleted scenes run less than 15 minutes.

Slight but fun are two featurettes, The nearly 20-minute Inside Legally Blonde is pretty much what you'd expect from an EPK these days, a good-looking, well-edited piece that is largely promotional but better than average. We get interviews with the main cast and filmmakers mostly shot on the set, including Luketic, Platt, screenwriters McCullah Lutz and Smith. The explanation of the basis for the novel by Amanda Brown is priceless, if only because it is an unintentionally hilarious case of life imitating art imitating life. And take note, aspiring writers... can it really be this easy to get your novel not only published, but turned into a hit movie? And I was surprsied at how serious they all took the film...legally blonde indeed.

The 8-minute The Hair That Ate Hollywood is also fun, with key hairstylist Joy Zapata and more EPK interviews on the challenges in coming up with just-right shade of blonde. An easy task, you say? Ha! With over forty costume changes - and hairstyles to match - needed for Witherspoon alone, Zapata and her team really had their work cut out for them. We even get a visual montage of all 40, so take that, doubting Thomases! Cute.

Rounding out the supplements are two promotional items. Most painful is the music video of the annoying Hoku doing the even more annoying "Perfect Day" is thankfully an original composition, and not a massacre of the Lou Reed classic. And last but not least are the film's theatrical trailer in non-anamorphic widescreen, and another trailer for The Princess Bride DVD.

Parting Thoughts