'The House Bunny' (PG-13)(out of four)

Part "Legally Blonde," and part "Heathers" and "Mean Girls" with a dose of "Animal House" thrown in, the campus comedy "House Bunny" takes a formula that has worked in movies for decades and amps it up for the video centerfold and "Girls Next Door" generation.

Anna Faris, best known to moviegoers for her "Scary Movie" appearances, as well as playing the surrogate mother to Monica and Chandler's twins on "Friends," plays uber-dumb blonde Shelley. When we first meet her she is perfectly content as one of Hugh Hefner's live-in bunnies at the Mansion, driving a pink Toyota Prius and getting pedicures from buff cabana boys.

But Shelley's world soon falls apart when she receives a letter supposedly from Hef who proclaims the day after her birthday that since she's turned 27 (that's 59 in Bunny years) she'll have to vacate the mansion.

Hef isn't there to see her off, however, since he's in Las Vegas, but the head houseboy promptly pulls up her junkyard station wagon in which she arrived and sends her on her way.

Homeless and knowing only the "Bunny" lifestyle, Shelley ends up on a college campus and mistakes a sorority house for something akin to a Playboy mansion. Through some twists and turns, she ends up becoming house mother to a group of misfits of the Zeta Alpha Zeta sorority, who are on the verge of having their house closed down for lack of pledges.

The girls range from a sorority sister who talks only through text message to a multiple pierced feminist, and a soon-to-be single mom who says she became with child during a research experiment for school.

Faris keeps the story afloat with her comic timing and ability to go for broke. The actress has always shown willingness for reckless abandon in the "Scary" movies.

Here, a habit of repeating people's names when she meets them in an "Exorcist" voice is side splitting. The downside of "House Bunny" is it falls flat after Shelley turns the girls into hotties who look like the Pussycat Dolls. After they're groomed and guy friendly, there's not much left.

The movie is littered with celebrity cameos including frequent appearances by Hugh Hefner himself, Shaquille O'Neal partying at the Playboy Mansion, and celebrity kid Colin Hanks as a guy-next-door type over whom Shelley literally falls flat on her face.

Rumer Willis (the daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis) is spunky in a bedazzled full body brace, while "American Idol" finalist Katharine McPhee plays the pregnant sorority sister, aptly named Harmony. Beverly D'Angelo makes an appearance as a wicked house mother named Mrs. Hagstrom.

"The House Bunny" frequently channels "Legally Blonde" and even seems to parody a scene taken right from the Reese Witherspoon hit. Shelley needs a quick dose of world history for a date with Oliver and attends a college class complete with fuzzy-topped pen. The copycat aspect here may well have been an inside joke between Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, who were the screenwriters of both "Blonde" and "Bunny."

The fact that Hef makes more than one appearance in the film is worth the price of admission alone. No doubt Adam Sandler as executive producer helped in procuring Hef, and it's great to see Sandler behind a chick flick for once.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that "House Bunny" has a plotline that sends the message that nerds aren't popular, but they are people, too. And even though "House Bunny" won't have much of a shelf life at the box office, it's good for a last laugh of summer.