Elle Reviews: Legally Blonde Prequel Series Fails To Impress Critics

The iconic Legally Blonde character Elle Woods is officially back on our screens in a new TV show depicting her life long before law school.

Launching on Wednesday on Amazon Prime, Elle follows a 16-year-old version of our beloved pink-wearing lawyer-in-training, the character made famous by Reese Witherspoon in the early 2000s.

While Reese is still involved in this new project as an executive producer, the Oscar winner, understandably, couldn’t play a teenager, which is why newcomer Lexi Minetree, whose spot-on audition went viral, was cast as the young heroine Elle.

Set years before the events of Legally Blonde, Elle follows the title character as she moves from her shiny, pastel world in Los Angeles to a grungy Seattle.

Unfortunately, critics are not exactly enamoured with Elle, with many disagreeing with the direction the character was taken in this new TV spin-off.

While some have praised Lexi’s leading performance – and the show’s nostalgic 1990s setting – others felt that the show paled in comparison to the 2001 classic, and felt more like a cynical cash-in than a deserving prequel.

Here is what critics are saying about Elle so far…

“Legally Blonde 3 has been stuck in development hell since 2018, cycling through different scripts, and aborted release dates. Elle is a quick fix. And presumably a cheaper one, at that.

“It pleases shareholders, fills an ‘if you liked this, why not watch…’ tile on the Prime Video landing page, and helps line the pockets of everyone involved – even if its curiously unfunny writing and nonsensical premise will likely leave many watching unsatisfied.”

“[If you] think of Elle Woods as an endlessly rebootable franchise IP à la James Bond or Superman, and this latest adventure as a loose re-adaptation of Laura Brown’s source novel rather than an expansion of it, Elle makes perfect sense from a business standpoint – though still only somewhat from a creative one.

“Amiable enough but nowhere near as charming as its cinematic predecessor, the new series does as much to highlight the limits of the Legally Blonde concept as its adaptability.”

“It should be a lot of peppy fun and in the odd moment it is, but the scripts seem to be deliberately half-baked, as if the show isn’t expecting your full attention: the supporting characters are generic and whenever a scene throws up an opportunity to deliver a killer gag, it habitually chooses something only gently amusing instead.”

“Having established its brand of comedy as largely aesthetic, Elle moves on to plots focused on tired teen drama, a pathetic love triangle, and a lazy mystery (that, technically, includes a death, so if you wanted to call Elle a murder-mystery – as ridiculous as that sounds – you wouldn’t be off base).

“None of it hits, including the forced film tie-ins, and Minetree’s admirable performance – adding sharpness and texture to futile dialogue and lifeless dilemmas – gets lost in perspective-less content destined to be, at most, second-screen entertainment.”

“Each episode seems needlessly tedious, running between 45-60 minutes long when they should be a quick and fun 30. Beats that are telegraphed from episode one drag out endlessly and even fun bits, like the back-and-forth banter between Elle and her mum [are] marred by an almost comical amount of product placement.”

“Here’s the logic problem. Legally Blonde rested on the culture shock of Elle going to Harvard. Wouldn’t she have mentioned, and been altered by, a similarly drastic life-change a few years earlier?”

“Unlike the original film, it’s not really a comedy, whether that’s by design or because writer Laura Kittrell can’t come up with the jokes.”

“It is surely too saccharine for today’s teenagers, and too teenage for adults who lived through the 1990s and have The Craft poster to prove it. This prequel, legally bland, is stifled by its own niceness and nostalgia.”

“The main characters are arguably even more developed in the show than they were in the original movie 25 years ago, which perhaps isn’t a shock given we have eight episodes to delve into, rather than just two hours.

But while I wanted to love Elle, it didn’t hit the sweet spot I hoped it would. Her character arc was too similar to the film, and it was lacking in uniqueness to justify being a prequel.”

“Elle succeeds where other unnecessary prequels and spinoffs fail because it understands what made Legally Blonde work: Elle is at her best when she’s an underdog and a fish out of water, forcing her to prove herself to everyone around her.”

“Ultimately, those who can get past the pilot and the canon problems will be rewarded with a lighthearted, bingeable series. When I got to the season finale, I whispered an Elle Woods-esque ‘yes!’ that Elle has already been renewed for season two.”

“The series avoids taking any real chances that might rock the boat. At the end of the day, Elle is funny, Minetree’s costumes are delightfully pink (though the show itself lacks any visual vibrancy), and it’s a relatively light series to binge over a weekend. Perhaps with a second season coming, the show might course-correct. However, as a prequel, don’t expect something new: Elle trades almost exclusively in nostalgia, and that’s just a shame.”

“Despite the clumsy stereotyping, there is plenty to love about Elle. People looking for more Legally Blonde can rest easy: the series boasts much the same premise as the original film (the fish out of water trope is present here throughout) but it’s been gently massaged for a modern day audience.”

“I’ll be honest, the series (which tilts towards a second one at the end) is all a bit young for a fogey like me, but it is a nice, slick nostalgia fix – a throwback to simpler, happier times – and as a prequel, it definitely works.”

“The mere fact that Elle’s rewritten history suggests that this inspiration came much earlier in her life doesn’t completely sit with what we know of her adult life. It’s clearly supposed to be a seedling for what’s to come, but perhaps is a little overplayed. Even so, I had such a good time watching Elle that I don’t even care.

“The ebbs and flows of high school drama are deliciously played, the script is genuinely hilarious, and the overarching narrative plot is addictively compelling.”

“It’s so difficult to capture the magic of something as beloved as Legally Blonde. But believe me when I say, this is a gorgeous honouring of the original story, wrapped in so much nostalgia and warmth.

“It’s been a long time since something has pulled at my heart strings quite so much – not least with familiar faces like the late James Van Der Beek adding to that wave of recognition for older views.”

Elle is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.