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'Miss Congeniality 2': All frills and no thrills

By HAP ERSTEIN
Palm Beach Post

Didn't Sandra Bullock learn anything from Speed 2: Cruise Control about not going back to the same well with a pale sequel?

Apparently not, because she returns to the role of snorting, disheveled FBI agent Gracie Hart in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. Gracie is a comfortable character for Bullock's amiable comedy skills, but screenwriter Marc Lawrence seems stumped for something interesting for her to do.

Warner Bros. Pictures 'The Upside of Anger' B- The verdict: A flimsy sequel with Bullock back in FBI mode, strictly for her ardent fans. Director: John Pasquin Starring: Sandra Bullock, Regina King, Enrique Murciano, William Shatner, Ernie Hudson and Heather Burns Run time: 115 minutes Release date: March 24, 2005 Rating: PG for sex-related humor See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer   -- Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Miss Congeniality 2"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Button-cute Bullock remains appealing and her less discerning fans may be perfectly satisfied with this hash of a replay, but moviegoers new to the character will probably be mystified by it all.

Five years ago, when we last left Gracie, she had gained celebrity status by saving the life of Miss United States during an undercover assignment within the pageant. In the new movie, set shortly after the end of the first one, the public's ability to recognize her has become a liability to the bureau, as an opening botched trap for bank robbers demonstrates.

Nevertheless, as her easily exasperated boss (Ernie Hudson) understands, Gracie can still be an asset to the force on the talk show circuit as "the face of the FBI." Flash forward 10 months and Gracie has become a snortless, well-groomed, flashily dressed spokeswoman. So off she heads with a makeup crew in tow, as well as an angry, overzealous agent Sam Fuller (Regina King) assigned to be Gracie's bodyguard. (The character's name is a reference to the writer-director of such war and action films as The Big Red One and Merrill's Marauders, a curious inside joke for this mainstream comedy.)

Anyway, Gracie and Sam take an instant dislike to each other, which sets up their snide odd-couple relationships, right through to the predictable thaw in their match-up and a potential costarring third installment in the Gracie chronicles.

The case they solve — thanks largely to Gracie's sudden, far-fetched inspirations — concerns saving kidnapped beauty queen (Heather Burns) and genial, but slow-witted pageant host (William Shatner, being a good sport about how he is portrayed). Not only are they abducted, but they are taken to Las Vegas, presumably to capitalize on the flashy scenery, but also to make slightly more plausible a climactic scene in a celebrity look-alike drag bar. Way out of character, Fuller dresses up as a mini-skirted Tina Turner while Gracie, sort of mining the comedy of the first movie's contest, puts on a big-plumed chorus girl outfit.

Wait, there's more and it's not pretty. Gracie learns that a potential culprit is a Dolly Parton look-alike and, spying her from behind, the FBI agent-turned-P.R.-stooge leaps into action and chases her throughout a casino. It is a clumsily filmed sequence that ends awfully predictably. The same goes for a later scene in which the abductees need to be rescued from Treasure Island casino's pirate ship, scheduled to sink on cue.

Despite it all, every wince-inducing moment, Bullock retains her cool with true star presence. She even manages to survive a scene where Gracie is heavily made-up as a wizened wheelchair-bound biddy at an assisted living residence to track down some clue or other.

Director John Pasquin, known for a lot of television work and for The Santa Clause, delivers all this nonsense efficiently enough. The film looks fine and one wonders whether it would be any more successful if it had a plot that actually made sense.