Blonde beauty takes on the law

Legally Blonde (cert 12)On general releaseAmber Melville-Brown'Law school is for people who are boring, ugly and serious.' So say the concerned girlfriends of Homecoming Queen and fashion-merchandising student Elle Woods, played by Reese Witherspoon, when they hear that she is going to throw it all away to go to Harvard.

The reason? Not that she sees her life of manicures, shoes and hair care shallow and meaningless.

Nor that she wants to exercise her mind as well as her body.

She wants to win back the man who dumped her for being 'too blonde' by showing that she too can be serious and become a lawyer like he has done.'Legally Blonde' falls between two stools.

If it is only supposed to be an amusing story of blonde bimbo catapulted into a dull world of dreary lawyers, then it should be funnier.

If it is supposed to carry a message that even blonde girls with big boobs can be lawyers then I - blondish, reasonably well-endowed and a lawyer - found it a bit irritating.Not because that message isn't highly valid.

But because the only reason Ms Woods goes to Harvard is to get an engagement ring as big as a fist on her well-manicured fingers.

Because she is admitted on the back of a video in which she reclines on a pool lilo, sporting a selection of skimpy, sequinned bikinis and reciting her achievements: dancing on a Ricki Martin video and designing a faux fur bikini.

Because she wins a place as an intern working on her professor's murder case because he sees her 'as a piece of ass'.

And because she is instructed in his place to represent the client at trial because they can talk moisturisers together and she swears by her client's best-selling exercise video.I won't spoil the ending, but suffice to say that the successful outcome of the trial (come on, you knew the defendant would get off) is not as a result of any great legal prowess shown by Ms Woods.But that said, will you like it? Ms Witherspoon's performance is actually good, but she looks even better.

So if the idea of Ms Drop-Dead-Gorgeous smiling amiably through a frothy piece of fun about lawyers in a series of implausible outfits is likely to bang your gavel, then this one's for you.Amber Melville-Brown is head of defamation at London-based Finers Stephens Innocent