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Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous
http://www.themoviemark.com/moviereviews/misscongeniality2.asp
PLOT
Three weeks after saving the Miss America Pageant, Gracie (Bullock) is
a household name and an inspiration to females of all ages (and most
likely poster material for males of all ages). She even has a
ghostwritten autobiography, From Misdemeanors to Miss Congeniality,
that is more than slightly inaccurate but popular all the same.
Unfortunately, her newfound fame compromises her undercover work and
botches the FBI's attempt to foil a bank robbery. No longer able to go
out in public without being recognized, she agrees to be the "face of
the FBI" and hit the talk show circuit to help soften its public
persona.
That's fine and dandy until 10 months later when Miss America and
William Shatner are kidnapped and held for ransom. She feels the urge
to get involved in the investigation, but she's told she will only be
needed for PR. It doesn't take a web developer with a BS in Electrical
Engineering and an MBA to figure out what happens. Sandra Bullock's
charm ensues.
JOHNNY'S TAKE
"The reason for a sequel," says Bullock, "is that Marc (Lawrence,
writer and producer) and I found ourselves on numerous occasions
imagining what Gracie would have gone on to do after her big triumph at
the pageant and how all the media attention would have affected her."
Yeah. I'm gonna take a wild one and say the fact that the original made
over $300 million (including domestic AND worldwide gross, rentals, and
DVD sales) probably had a little something to do with it as well.
Let's be honest here, do you really need a review to convince you of
whether or not you want to see this? Seriously, if you watch the
trailer and read this review and STILL see the movie, then I don't want
to hear any complaints. Walk out of the theater with a smile on your
face or I'll put one there, OK? Otherwise, don't see it. Come on,
you're not really expecting something fresh and original are you?
Have you read the plot line? Miss Congeniality 2 obviously runs a
predictable path. Gracie is originally reluctant to become Ms. FBI
Barbie, but then she embraces the role and becomes a wee bit too
wrapped up in it. But wait! William Shatner and Miss America are
kidnapped! So it's off to Las Vegas to run a little PR. Enter Treat
Williams as the Las Vegas FBI supervisor (Collins) who has ambitions of
writing his own book and doesn't care for Gracie coming in and stealing
his thunder. You might as well have cued the sinister music and given
him a Cheshire cat to pet and a handlebar mustache to twirl.
It'll come as a shock to approximately three sub-70 IQ viewers that
Collins disregards Gracie's attempts at helping and begins to steer the
investigation in the wrong direction. You know what that means, right?
Time for Gracie to shed the FBI Barbie image and go back to her old
ways! Somebody call up Memento, and let it know that a new master of
unpredictability is here and its name is Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and
Fabulous!
OK, so not really. But who cares? The movie ramps up the cheese, the
stupidity, the silliness, and the camp, and it revels in it. The best
thing I can say about this sequel is it knows exactly what it is, it
knows exactly what its audience wants, it knows exactly how
ridiculously over-the-top everything is, and it doesn't care one whit
what the critics think. There's no shame to be found here, and for
that, I tip my hat.
I'll be honest, if you try to put a movie like this on the shoulders of
Julia Stiles or Kirsten Dunst then I'm running screaming for the exit
like I'm Haley Joel Osment at Neverland Ranch. But I love Sandra
Bullock, and she has the charm and the personality to make me smile at
the stupidest stuff. She trips about 24 times, dances at a drag club in
a ridiculous outfit, lays a beatin' on a 6'7" behemoth to the tune of
Spiderbait's Black Betty, and she forces me to be entertained by it.
Admit it, she has a knack for making insanity absolutely adorable.
Oh, and who can forget the addition of a partner! Regina King (the girl
from 227) is an FBI transfer with anger management issues. She's
assigned as Gracie's bodyguard, and she has a bad habit of
overextending herself physically. Yep, you guessed it, they don't
initially get along. Can you see hijinks and shenanigans ensuing? I
think you can!
Is this a great movie? Not by any means. It's not even as good as the
original, a big reason being that William Shatner is regretfully
underutilized (although he does have a great line about his friend
being run over by a milk truck). Oh, and go ahead and make sure you
bring your little yellow bucket to puke in during the final scene. A
producer somewhere obviously spoke up and said, "Hey, we're one
aww-inducing scene short of our quota," and thus the final scene was
born.
But you just have to accept that and the fact that this is a comedy
that'll have you shaking your head and rolling your eyes more than
once. In fact, I should be ashamed to admit that I let myself enjoy it
as much as I did. But if you go into the movie expecting to have a good
time then you should walk out satisfied. The screening audience
absolutely loved it. Granted, proclamations such as, "That is the best
movie I've seen this year!" are a bit much, but this is indeed a movie
that knows its audience and plays to it effectively.
Are you expecting high art? If so, then you really need to learn how to
better analyze movie trailers. You also need to learn how to better
analyze movie titles. Armed and Fabulous? One of the great absolutes in
life is any time a movie tries to be cute and makes a play on words
with a common phrase (in this case, "armed and dangerous") in its movie
title, then you better have a tent with you because mama, it's time to
set up camp! The only thing missing here is a cameo by Adam West.
I think I'm gonna follow the trend. I'm gonna write a script about
baseball called America's Pastime where the home team loses the
championship. However, they will get their revenge in the sequel -
America's Pastime 2: Payback's a Pitch. It's gonna rule. You know it,
and I know it.
Bottom line, America - how often in life will you get the chance to see
Sandra Bullock in boxers and a t-shirt, all while sportin' some long,
shiny, straight hair? At the very least there is entertainment value in
THAT! *sighs wistfully*
THE GIST
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous is not a great movie. But
there's no reason you shouldn't know what to expect going in. Did you
hate the original? If so, and you still go see this sequel, then you
deserve to be upset at having wasted your money. However, if you're a
fan of Sandra Bullock and stupid, over-the-top antics, then you'll find
this to be a fun, harmless little movie that'll put a smile on your
face and make no apologies at not attempting to achieve world peace.
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Johnny Betts
The Movie Mark
http://www.themoviemark.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 39608 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1371579 X-RT-TitleID: 10003891 X-RT-SourceID: 1604 X-RT-AuthorID: 10939 X-RT-RatingText: 3/5
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