The Unseen Movie Review

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous

Sandra Bullock’s exploits as a geeky FBI agent turned beauty queen in 2000’s Miss Congeniality were an entertaining slice of lightweight farcical fun. Nothing too challenging, just a silly premise nicely supported by a likeable central performance, and greatly aided by Michael Caine in a superb supporting role as the gay beauty pageant coach and Star Trek’s William Shatner in a delightfully self-mocking turn as the show’s host.

Here, Bullock is back for pretty much more of the same inconsequential and inoffensive amusement. Kicking off shortly after her success at the first film’s pageant, Bullock’s Agent Hart has become something of a celebrity, adored by the media and with a book to promote. Keen for the positive publicity, the FBI are allowing her a lot of leeway to show the agency in a good light, and her crime-fighting skills seem to be slipping, when the news comes that some of her old pageant friends have been kidnapped. She naturally wants to get in on the case, but her bosses not only doubt her skills but also don’t want to risk losing their prime PR asset. To compromise she is given a bodyguard to help out, and it turns into a fairly typical female buddy cop movie.

Bullock is her typical ditzy on-screen presence, reviving the character from the original film with so little effort you could almost imagine that it’s because it is exactly the same character as she’s played in pretty much every film she’s ever made. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing – she has ably turned the Sandra Bullock persona into a likable and marketable commodity and achieved the near-impossible of maintaining her position as a sexy Hollywood star despite having hit her forties. For women in the cutthroat world of showbiz, that’s no mean feat. Of course, the fact that physically she’s hardly changed since her big break in 1993’s Demolition Man has probably helped a fair bit too.

Sadly, Caine has not returned for the sequel, but we do still at least get Shatner as one of the unfortunate abductees, allowing him plenty of space for yet more of his trademark overacting. When Shatner is on top self-aware form, he can be a true delight to watch, gamely lampooning his public persona to the max and happily weighing in with that wonderfully bizarre delivery which these days freely acknowledges that he will never be considered a great actor. He is – as long as he’s kept in relatively small doses, as here – some kind of comic genius.

Much as with the first film, there is little of any originality here. This is no great cinematic masterpiece. It is not reinventing any genres, experimenting with any new techniques, and is not going to win anyone involved any prizes. It is, however, a fun and silly slice of throwaway nonsense – and as such an ideal antidote to a hard week at the office.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM