Review: Legally Blonde (2001)

“I just don’t think that Brooke could’ve done this. Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands, they just don’t.”
– Elle Woods

SYNOPSIS: Elle Woods, a fashionable sorority queen is dumped by her boyfriend. She decides to follow him to law school, while she is there she figures out that there is more to her than just looks. – via IMDB

Yes. The nostalgia man. The nostalgia. I cannot tell you how many times I watched the silly movie growing up, and I have no regrets. I decided the other day to trip down memory lane as rewatch Legally Blonde, and I am glad I did. It is a silly fluffy film for sure, but it has heart, some spunk, and quite a solid message to it, and all this makes for an enjoyable watch.

Reese Witherspoon is the perfect Elle Woods. Like seriously, she just pulls of that totally ridiculous blonde with all the aplomb you would hope that goes with it. She comes across as a totally shallow, brainless airhead, and yet she is not slow. She is just interested in other things – like makeup, beauty, fashion, hair care, and her handbag dog. I love how sassy she is, too, and she has some really priceless lines (like getting into Harvard not really being that hard xD). But when her asshat boyfriend, Warner Huntington III, rips the rug out from under her, Elle goes above and beyond to win him back, and instead proves to the world that she is more than the stereotypical dumb blonde.

Disclaimer: check your brain at the door before you head in for this. If you try to take this too seriously or apply this all as happening in real life, you are going to be in for a bad time. Reality suspension, to be sure. Now, back to the movie. Harvard changes Elle, and in a good way. She gains more confidence than ever before, and feels like she is useful and applies herself, she makes a difference. She also makes real friends that side, and watching Witherspoon’s Elle and Jennifer Coolidge’s Paulette together is something else altogether. I quite enjoyed the little awkward side story between Paulette and the delivery guy, and I thought that Luke Wilson’s Emmett was terribly sweet. I also really liked how much heart Legally Blonde brought to the table, and the strong messages peppered throughout it.

Legally Blonde is a charming, light, fluffy film that tackles some strong issues and actually has quite a good, solid message that it conveys. It also helps that it is really fun and has moments that will stick with you (I mean who is in a hurry to forget the ludicrous bend and snap?!). Also, it’s totally nostalgic, and that wins points for me. It’s such a chick flick, this cannot be denied, and is cute in that slightly sickening way, but you gotta love it.

Rapid Review: Final Destination 2 (2003)

“Some people say there’s a balance to everything. For every life, there’s a death, for every death, there is a life. But the introduction of life that was not meant to be, that can invalidate the list, force Death to start anew. You have to follow the signs… Kimberly.”
– William Bludworth

SYNOPSIS: When Kimberly has a violent premonition of a highway pileup she blocks the freeway, keeping a few others meant to die, safe…Or are they? The survivors mysteriously start dying and it’s up to Kimberly to stop it before she’s next. – via IMDB

So, here we are. Final Destination could have been a standalone film, but studios decided it would be best to create this huge franchise from it, and here we have the next installment. Definitely still one of the better sequels to watch, and it was pretty cool to see AJ Cook outside of Criminal Minds, though I love her there. The story is a little shakier in getting started as opposed to its predecessor, but it gets into the swing of things quick enough with plenty gore and blood to fittingly accompany the film. The film was never really going to showcase any deep, in depth characters, but it tried some clumsy attempts to get there. Too many annoying people, and the same “this is BS” argument is getting really old. Bringing Clear back was also something that worked in favour of the film, as it gave us a link to the first one, a character we knew and could root for, who gave the movie the edge because she’d beat the game before, even though it had cost her dearly, and she lives in a padded cell. Incidentally, this gives rise to a whole slew of other questions I just don’t even know how to answer – firstly, electronics in a padded room = fire, secondly, why no food poisoning? Death on vacation? You get the gist of it. Anyway, there are some pretty inventive deaths scattered throughout here to feed our bloodlust, and the story takes a new spin on how to fool and escape Death, so at least they were still pushing for originality. The effects and CGI are, again, a little sketchy, but it’s alright, sort of a trademark for these movies. I think these movies are really fun for a movie night with friends – popcorn, gore, spans to laugh at.

Rapid Review: Final Destination (2000)

“In death there are no accidents, no coincidences, no mishaps, and no escapes.”
– Bludworth

SYNOPSIS: After a teenager has a terrifying vision of him and his friends dying in a plane crash, he prevents the accident only to have Death hunt them down, one by one. – via IMDB

I popped this in looking for some old school cheese, and I wasn’t disappointed. These movies were never going to be great, ever, but they can provide some mindless entertainment, and were definitely worth throwing in at the beginning of the series, before they got super terrible. I think this is one of those instances where it should have been a standalone, but with more effort done to it so it wouldn’t be forgettable without the slew of sequels. I remember this movie was so big when I was younger, it was everywhere, so you must know how many times this was seen at movie nights, etc. Anyway, pretty simple story coupled with some semi-sketchy acting would result in your average horror, and Final Destination does not deviate much from the formula. This is not necessarily a bad thing. There were tons of creative deaths (at the time), spans of cringe-worthy dialogue, Devon Sawa at his height of fame as well as some Ali Larter thrown into the mix. I had fun – exploding planes, beheadings, rogue buses, constant freak accidents? Yep, Final Destination had it all, as well as some silly romance permeating the story, and all that random, 90’s teen anger that has always been in the older movies, captured by Kerr Smith. I don’t know, everything about this movie screams 90’s teen horror, and that is okay, but definitely not as good as some of the other horror/shasher films we got that decade (though we got our fair share of super sketchy, too). The story, in my opinion, could have done more with itself, but chose not to, so you get a relatively standard horror flick at the end of the day. The special effects in this movie ran rampant, although they are certainly not the worst in the franchise, it is something that turns me off in a movie – an overkill of effects. Especially when they too dodgy and half-assed. I don’t actually have too much to say about this, and I am sure that the large majority have seen this movie, so you should all know how you feel about it, more or less. Some good, some bad, some downright sketchy, so Final Destination.