Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (PG-13, 2003)

Elle (Reese Witherspoon) hires a detective to find the biological mother of her dog, Bruiser, so she can invite Bruiser's family to her wedding. She finds out that his mother is in a lab for testing cosmetics on animals. When she urges her law firm to oppose the use of animal-testing in cosmetics (the movie is careful to stay away from the issue of animal testing for medication), she is fired. So, Elle heads to Washington determined to get legislation passed ("Bruiser's Law"), freeing Bruiser's mother and all of the other lab animals.

Witherspoon is still enchanting, but LEGALLY BLONDE 2 suffers from sequel-itis. That happens when the movie studio wants badly to repeat the success of an original, but the happily-ever-after ending of the first one leaves very little room for further developments, so they just repeat it. In this case, that even means repeating some of the same jokes. In the first movie, sorority president Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) discovered that she had a brain. The fun of the movie for the audience was having our cupcake and respecting her, too, which was possible because we got to enjoy her adorable bubble-headed (but sweet-natured) reaction to very serious Harvard Law School and then see her triumph by being both nicer and smarter than anyone else. That triumph included professional and romantic happy endings. Now what?

Well, this movie starts by taking some of that happiness away from her, which is okay, but it also takes away some of the character development, too, leaving Elle an inconsistent and ultimately uncomfortable combination of silly and smart. It's really more of a series of skits than a story, but as long as you don't care whether it goes anywhere, some of the skits are cute enough, thanks to Witherspoon's precision timing and ravishing smile. The movie makes the most of Witherspoon's talents, but wastes the considerable potential of Sally Field, Bob Newhart, Dana Ivey, and Regina King.