Miss Congeniality 2 Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)March 24th, 2005
MISS CONGENIALITY 2: ARMED AND FABULOUS
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Warner Bros/ Castle Rock Ent./Village Roadshow
Grade: D
Directed by: John Pasquin
Written by: Marc Lawrence
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Regina King, Enrique Murciano, William Shatner, Ernie Hudson, Heather Burns, Diedrich Bader, Treat Williams, Abraham Benrubi, Nick Offerman, Eileen Brennan, Dolly Parton
Screened at: AMC, NYC, 3/21/05
You can spend good money on costumes, actors' salaries, and on high-priced, on site locations like Vegas. That doesn't necessarily make for a solid movie. You've got to have an interesting script, meaning that if you're doing a comedy, as director John Pasquin is presumably doing, you have to have some laughs. Sadly, not even a mediocre "Miss Congeniality" directed five years ago by Donald Petrie, discouraged the folks making the sequel. Where "Miss Congeniality" was a wholly predictable story of a tomboyish FBI agent who goes undercover as a contestant in the Miss United States pageant in order to find a criminal, "Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous" is neither fabulous nor congenial. The portrayal of an effeminate FBI agent is shtick that I thought went out in the sixties, and the principal performer's pratfalls, sensibly limited this time, are almost as embarrassing as Sandra Bullock's Serpico-like portrayal of an elderly Jewish lady in a wheelchair.
Opening on a Thursday to avoid a clash with Good Friday, "Miss Congeniality 2," written by Marc Lawrence, is anchored by a performance of Sandra Bullock as FBI agent Grace Hart, looking not a day older than she was in the initial offering. Barred from doing undercover work because of her national exposure in the Miss United States contest, she is set up by her boss (Ernie Hudson), to work up some good publicity for the Bureau. She is to be "the new face of the FBI," her gamin-like posture nixed in favor of a make-up job by Joel (Diedrich Bader), an annoying, stereotypical presence in the picture. While agent Hart seems almost to enjoy her new role, her only alternative being a desk job pushing papers, an event occurs that changes everything. Miss United States, Cheryl (Heather Burns) and the Bert-Parks-like pageant host, Stan (William Shatner), are kidnapped in Nevada by a pair of thugs (Abraham Benrubi, Nick Offerman) who appear more like hit men working for someone with brains than people having the brains to arrange for an abduction. Agent Hart, accompanied by a bodyguard with anger issues, Sam Fuller (Regina King), have so much difficulty getting along with each other that you wonder whether they can be effective in catching the gangsters and releasing the two hostages.
The thin movie plot is merely an excuse for Bullock–and to a large extent King–to show their mettle in a series of skits, none of which really works. During the Regis Philbin show, Fuller demonstrates her bodyguard technique on the host, smashing his instep, breaking his nose, and kicking him in the groin. At a nursing home where the duo play wheelchair-bound mother and nurse, agent Jeff Foreman (Enrique Murciano) plays the role of the aging matron's son, eager to put her away for good in the home, and asking the receptionist whether the place has a euthanasia program–not terribly funny in light of the Schiavo case. At Vegas, agents Hart and Fuller must go on stage pretending to be men dressed as women, Fuller giving an interpretation of Tina Turner while Hart tackles Dolly Parton. Typically enough, the daring duo get into trouble with the local FBI chief in Nevada, Collins (Treat Williams), who accuses them of messing with his turf.
A film is in trouble when the highest praise goes to the costume designer. Deena Appel's threads are sumptuous. But the physical gags fall as flat as Dolly Parton when attacked by Ms. Bullock, and the sentimental touch–the gradual easing of hostility between agent Hart and agent Fuller, flowering into friendship--is predictable enough to be guessed by the audience a half hour into the story.
Rated PG-13. 115 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
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