House Bunny, The

Anna Faris gives a kooky, effervescent performance in this depressingly conventional post-feminist farce about what happens when a pampered, sheltered beauty queen gets kicked out of her Playboy Mansion home at the ripe age of 27. The hapless, homeless, half-naked sexpot wanders onto the front lawn of the least popular local sorority and sets about teaching the frumpy women of Zeta house how to dress like Pussycat Dolls in order to attract the new pledges they desperately need -- and the boys who will give their lives meaning. If you think of this Adam Sandler co-production as a cross between Legally Blonde and a gender-swapped Revenge of the Nerds, you won't be too far off the mark. There is something compelling about the idea of a dumb comedy starring funny women for a change -- and Faris is really funny. But the script isn't exactly full of surprises, and just about every major scene (the awkward date, the makeover, the sexy car wash) is a too-familiar cliché in a film that contradicts itself, insisting that men want women who are beautiful on the inside -- only after asserting that you need to wear big hair, push-up bras and shorty-shorts to get their attention. C+