Okay, okay, Ill admit it as chick-flicks go, I thought the original Miss Congenialty was alright. It had a bit of originality to its premise, was competently directed by Donald Petrie, and featured Sandra Bullock in a role as the cynical, sarcastic FBI Agent Gracie Hart that she was perfect for. But Ill be a Planet of the Apes cast-members uncle if I can think up such positive an array of comments to make about this horrendously ill-advised sequel.
Picking up just three weeks after the 2000 flick left off, we rejoin Hart as she struggles to slip back into the kind of anonymity which as you might have guessed – tends to be fairly important when you work undercover. You see, it seems shes become something of a celeb since busting the beauty pageant bad guys last time round, and her newfound fame is proving problematic to say the least. So boss Harry McDonald (Ernie I used to be a Ghostbuster, you know! Hudson) packs her off to work the chat-show circuit and boost the bureaus image and its all going pretty well too, until she finds out that beauty queen pal Cheryl (Heather Burns) has been kidnapped and, wouldntcha know it, she wants back in the game.
Where the first movie was carried largely by Bullocks frothy, tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the miserable man-hating Hart, this time the character has been mangled beyond all recognition and the movie, as a result, is a dud. Writer Marc Lawrence cant seem to decide whether he wants her to be obsessed with her looks or the exact opposite, and as a result she becomes a confused character whos impossible to get to grips with. By way of an apparent compromise, Regina King is drafted in to fill the shoes Bullock previously occupied, as the Feds resident Little Miss Unapproachable. Through no fault of Kings, the idea doesnt work, and as things drag on (in more ways than one, cross-dressing fans!) it grows increasingly obvious that this franchise should have been left in the singular.