Reese Witherspoon tries hard to duplicate the success of Legally Blonde in this bland new romantic comedy from director Andy Tennant (Anna and the King), but even her brand of fierce determination (she comes off as the most driven prom queen of all time) can't save the film. She's cute and perky and not a little bitchy, but as in Legally Blonde, she has her heart in the right place as up-and-coming New York designer Melanie Carmichael, who must return to her hicksville home town in Alabama to obtain a divorce from her childhood sweetheart (Josh Lucas, who looks and sounds like Matthew McConaughey's younger brother) so she can marry the debonair son (Patrick Dempsey) of the mayor of New York City. Naturally, once she gets there, her would-be ex gives her a hard time about her new hifalutin ways, and the sparks (such as they are) fly. The cast, which includes Candice Bergen as the calculating mayor and Mary Kay Place as Witherspoon's mother, works hard, but the jokes are tired -- Tennant and screenwriter C. Jay Cox have to be the only guys around still trying to wring a laugh (or two) out of the wonders of the La-Z-Boy. At the Apple Valley, Entertainment, Flagship, Holiday, Providence Place Mall 16, Showcase, and Tri-Boro cinemas.