Elle Overview: Prime Video’s Legally Blonde Prequel Is Cute, However Would not Fairly Go The Bar – TVLine

With “Elle,” Prime Video has got down to give “Legally Blonde” heroine Elle Woods her personal origin story… what, prefer it’s exhausting? Nicely, perhaps it’s more durable than we thought, truly, based mostly on the primary three episodes I’ve seen.

We first met Elle again in 2001 within the big-screen comedy “Legally Blonde,” with Reese Witherspoon starring because the plucky blonde who shocked everybody at Harvard Regulation College by revealing she had an excellent authorized thoughts to associate with her bubbly Valley Lady persona. The film was a giant hit and spawned a sequel and a Broadway musical, however not one of the offshoots actually recaptured the spark of the unique. And Prime Video’s new prequel “Elle” (premiering this Wednesday) suffers the identical destiny: It is cute sufficient, with some intelligent moments and stable performances, however it steers away from what made “Legally Blonde” distinctive in favor of drained TV teen drama clichés we have seen too many instances earlier than.

We head again to 1995 to search out Elle (performed right here by Lexi Minetree) getting ready to enter her junior yr of highschool in L.A. (Opening with Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” is a pleasant contact.) However after her dad (Tom Everett Scott) hits a profession bump, Elle and her household are pressured to maneuver to — gasp! — wet Seattle. Placing Elle Woods within the grunge capital of the world is a great concept, recreating the fish-out-of-water dynamic of the unique movie. At her new highschool, Elle is like Malibu Barbie attending the Goth college from “Wednesday”: a brilliant pink cupcake in a sea of pale, morose faces. However she ultimately manages to search out new pals… and a brand new love curiosity, too, after all.

“Elle” is full of enjoyable ’90s nostalgia — when Elle finds herself trapped in the course of a rowdy mosh pit, she complains, “This does not appear sanitary!” — however the era-specific stereotypes are a bit overplayed, too. Each scholar at Elle’s new highschool is a mopey, flannel-clad cynic, with out exception, which does not ring true. (Even the cheerleaders are Goth.) Certainly Elle would discover no less than one Cosmopolitan-reading kindred spirit in Seattle, proper? Plus, the scholars have an excessively trendy social consciousness that does not match the time interval. Being homosexual definitely wasn’t accepted in 1995 like it’s now. And did anybody even know what a vegan was again then?

There are welcome shades of “Clueless” and “The Brady Bunch Film” in right here, with Elle because the sunny optimist combating again towards ’90s angst. (“Insecure” alum Laura Kittrell and “The Vampire Diaries” veteran Caroline Dries function showrunners.) However there are occasions when “Elle” sinks into “The Carrie Diaries” territory, giving us an elaborate backstory for a beloved character that we by no means actually wanted or requested for. (Sure, we get to see how Elle first met her tiny pooch Bruiser, and I might wager we’ll see her be taught the “bend and snap” in some unspecified time in the future.) It really works higher as a comedy than a drama, too: The dramatic beats are clunky, and it leans too typically into YA drama tropes just like the inevitable love triangle.

Lexi Minetree definitely seems the half as Elle, and she or he has some good moments, however her Elle falls wanting the magic that Reese Witherspoon conjured up in “Legally Blonde.” Witherspoon was a comedic power of nature on this function, and Minetree cannot fairly seize that lightning-in-a-bottle high quality. June Diane Raphael, although, is a giant spotlight as Elle’s mother Eva, nonetheless fortunately residing in her Bel-Air bubble irrespective of the place she’s geographically situated. (Whereas objecting to Elle carrying an unflattering turtleneck, she declares, “The neck is the pedestal to the face.”)

Now please perceive: I am not complaining {that a} present like that is cute and fluffy. It needs to be cute and fluffy! However whereas “Legally Blonde” transcended the rom-com style, “Elle” merely follows it. The important thing to the unique movie’s greatness was watching Elle outsmart her snooty classmates, however we do not get something that surprising or satisfying in “Elle.” There is a sure spunk lacking right here as nicely. Even when issues obtained powerful for Elle in “Legally Blonde,” she at all times discovered a method to flourish, and it takes too lengthy for this Elle to flourish. In the long run, we’re left with an uninspired piece of IP nostalgia bait that’s principally innocent — however fairly forgettable, too.

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Prime Video’s “Legally Blonde” prequel “Elle” has some intelligent moments, however it lacks the magic that made the Reese Witherspoon unique nice.