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Harmless 'Miss Congeniality 2' appears rather plain
Sandra Bullock
Warner Bros.
Director: John Pasquin.
Stars: Sandra Bullock, Regina King, William Shatner.
MPAA rating: PG-13 for sex-related humor.
Moderately pleasant and breezy without ever working itself up to one functioning laugh, "Con 2" is a patch job. Like, what can we do to reanimate a joke we exhausted in the original?
In the first film, clumsy tomboy FBI agent Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) gets pressed into ill-fitting service in a Miss United States pageant, where she discovers her inner Barbie. Or tries to. She has trouble suppressing her natural snort.
The sequel begins with her being dumped by phone by her earlier FBI amour, Agent Eric Matthews, played in the original by Benjamin Bratt, who isn't on the sequel's payroll and is neither seen nor heard here.
Lacking motivation now to stay put and settle down with him, Gracie accepts a special assignment as "the face of the FBI," which means making personal appearances like a Miss America.
But what's funny about her now that she has a more feminine sense of self and a diminished inclination to trip over her own feet?
Director John Pasquin and returning screenwriter Marc Lawrence introduce running jokes, most of which register without paying off.
It's supposed to be riotous that Gracie is recognized wherever she goes, as if she were Julia Roberts.
Beauty pageant winner Cheryl Frazier (Heather Burns) and emcee Stan Fields (William Shatner) are two of the returnees from the original. What to do with them?
Kidnap them. Gives Gracie someone to rescue. Lets Shatner act with a mock-comic cowardice that is as close as the sequel gets to having fun on its own terms.
Assign Gracie an effeminate gay makeup and hair stylist, Joel (Diedrich Bader). Not much fresh there, but there would be no character at all without the flourishes.
Give Gracie an antagonistic black bodyguard, to be played with attack-dog bad attitude by Regina King. Oh, and call the character Sam Fuller, an homage to the late take-no-prisoners action director -- a joke likely to be lost on much of the audience.
Is Sam's sadistic streak supposed to be amusing?
Lean on the enmity between the women for a while because they'll be obligated to bond by the finish.
There isn't a scene that couldn't be improved by some snappy repartee, but then, "Con 2" isn't that kind of comedy. It's about dreaming up enough outlandish behavior to sell in TV spots and a two-minute trailer.
It's harmless, if hopeless. Had "Con 2" attempted to launch the franchise, there would be no sequel. Millions who laughed through the original will figure that out over the next four days.
