Congeniality 2 is a drag!

You know a comedy is sagging when its big laughs come from Sandra Bullock shuffling fake boobs around her waist. Even Bullock, a smart comic star, has to struggle hard to amuse in the new Miss Congeniality 2 because the script is utterly predictable, has little genuine comic moments and is overdrawn.

You know the moment, for instance, you see the confrontation between black Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Sam Fuller (Regina King) and her peer Gracie Hart (Bullock), that they are going to be buddies soon. Some of the older movie fans may also wonder if King (fresh from playing a strong part in Ray) and Bullock will have chemistry in the league of what Gene Wilder and black comedian Richard Pryor enjoyed in films such as Stir Crazy.

Yet, despite its misadventures and weak comedy plot, Miss Congeniality: Armed And Fabulous, could have a big welcome at the box-office for a number of reasons. For one, the first film in the series was a worldwide hit, and fans still remember it fondly four years after its release. Secondly, the new movie does provide some amusement, despite its stereotyped characters and the feel of an over-extended sitcom.

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Also, Regina King could bring in large numbers of African Americans to the film. One shouldn't also overlook the film's girl-power message. But those who had fun with the first film will surely miss Michael Caine and Candice Bergen. And director Donald Petri's lighter but firm touch.

In the previous installment, Gracie Hart (Bullock) went undercover as a contestant in a beauty pageant and saved it from being blown up.

In the new film, things haven't been going well for her, though she is still a bit of media sensation. She is reeling from a failed romance and frustrated to find her fame jeopardising the undercover work she loves. Her colleagues resent her success, and there is Sam to make her feel worse.

When inadvertently Gracie botches up a key assignment, she is not fired because the FBI has other ideas for her. Her boss (an underused Ernie Hudson) urges her to put her celebrity status to work. Soon Hart is 'the new face of the FBI,' and is made to look more glamourous and, some may say, sexy.

Guiding her in the transformation is image stylist Joel (a decent Diedrich Bader). When Gracie's pal Miss United States (Heather Burns) and her pageant host Stan Fields (William Shatner, looking morose and misplaced) are kidnapped in Nevada by sibling thugs (Abraham Benrubi and Nick Offerman), Gracie arrives at the Las Vegas FBI headquarters along with a reluctant bodyguard (King) to save her friend.

But the FBI boss (Treat Williams) doesn't care for Gracie, and she defies orders and goes undercover with Sam and Joel. Before the thugs are defeated, we will watch a few unexciting chase scenes, a drag extravaganza and hear a joke at the expense of combative and controversial former FBI chief Edgar Hoover.

Though, under the ho-hum direction of John Pasquin, most of the actors manage to do a fairly okay job, one feels increasingly that Bullock is repeating her mannerisms and speech pattern from the previous film. Still, there is a certain amount of appeal to her goofiness. And she has a fairly good time with Regina King.