One of my family’s favorite movies is Miss Congeniality, the 2000 movie about an FBI agent forced to go undercover at the Miss United States pageant.  We are big fans of its star, Sandra Bullock, who has a penchant for playing spunky heroines and the physical attractiveness of the girl-next-door we all wish we had known.

      Not exactly great drama, but satisfying entertainment, Miss Congeniality took in millions of dollars worldwide and has become a staple on cable TV.  In our house alone, we have watched it dozens of times.

      So why pay good money to go see the same story, remade with less credibility? 

      In essence, that’s the problem posed by Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous.  If you’ve seen the first movie, you’ve seen this one, and even Bullock’s lovely presence can’t salvage things.

      There are a number of good reasons for making a sequel.  Perhaps the original left a number of threads hanging, the characters have enough depth to warrant further exploration, or the original plot can be twisted in interesting ways.

      None of these apply to Miss Congeniality 2, which seems to have been generated from a checklist of the first movie’s successful elements.

      Item: Gracie blows an undercover operation, leading to the wounding of a fellow agent.  At least this time, it’s her high recognition quotient, not her clumsiness, that messes things up

      Item: A female agent with anger issues devastates a male fellow agent during physical training. This time, it’s Gracie’s new partner, Sam Fuller (Regina King, last seen to much better effect in Ray).

      Item: Put Gracie’s makeover in the hands of a gay-inflected comedic character.  Here, a younger, even more flamboyant character, played with evident enjoyment by Diedrich Bader (Oswald from The Drew Carey Show) replaces the original’s Michael Caine. 

      Item: Let William Shatner parody himself.  Check. Unfortunately, Shatner’s on-screen appearances as the amiable Stan Fields are few and far between in this movie.  The best laugh I got was Stan begging for his life: “I’ve done theatre.  I played Iago in Twelfth Night.”  Alas, the core target audience for the film is unlikely to know enough Shakespeare to get the joke.

      Item: Have Gracie disgrace herself by attacking the wrong villain, then refuse to return home, staying on at the tourist-friendly location (Las Vegas this time replacing San Antonio) to solve a case her more obtuse, by-the-book superior refuses to consider from her point of view.  Check, and double check.

      The weakest thing in the original movie was Gracie’s inexplicable attraction to fellow agent Eric Matthews (Benjamin Bratt), a man who constantly put her down and only noticed her after she was transformed into “FBI Barbie.”  Gracie deserved better. 

      Bratt is absent from this movie, his role as resident hunk falling to Without a Trace’s Enrique Murciano, but his character is sadly not forgotten. Gracie spends way too much time wallowing in her sorrow after Matthews discovers he isn’t so interested in her after all.

      Miss Congeniality 2 has attractive actors and scenic locations, and won’t tax viewers’ brains too much.  If that’s all you want in a movie, go see it.

      But remember: Encourage them, and they’ll be back.  Are we ready for Miss Congeniality 3: What Am I Doing in This Movie?

 This review appeared in the Aberdeen American News on March 27, 2005.

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