By Jae-Ha Kim
Amazon.com
September 21, 2008
With its female-friendly cast and campus setting, Legacy attempts to capture the witty black humor of Mean Girls and Heathers.
Lana (Haylie Duff, 7th Heaven) is the alpha female in her sorority. Renowned for having the hottest girls on campus, Omega Kappa screens out its pledges based primarily on their looks. Lana wants to admit sexy, lithe Emily (Laura Ashley Innes, Malcolm in the Middle), but there’s a catch. She can only join if there’re no legacies–daughters of previous sorority sisters–who want to join.
And there is. Katie (Kate Albrecht, My Best Friend’s Girl) is by no means the uggo she’s portrayed as. But in Lana’s mean-spirited world, Katie is completely unacceptable. If this were Clueless, the popular girls would take Katie under their well-toned wings and give her a complete makeover and turn her into one of them.
Here, they humiliate her so severely that viewers are left wondering just why she would want to become part of their nasty group. When Katie turns up dead (and this is no surprise giving away this plot device), the police focus on Lana and her high-heeled cronies. Whether they are guilty of the crime is almost inconsequential. They are so unlikable and unrelatable that viewers want them to be put away–just for being unnecessarily mean girls.
With what looks like an awkward blonde wig, Duff doesn’t seem comfortable in her role as the alpha-bitch. The only actor who appears more out of place than her is Tom Green, who is sorely miscast as the police officer in charge of the case.
