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| Gracie’s back and this time she’s armed and fabulous in Las Vegas!
As the newly coifed and styled “Face of the FBI”, Gracie is now serving the Bureau on the talk-show circuit. After several months of being preened and treated as a superstar, Gracie becomes her own worst nightmare having lost her edge and is unable to take part in active service. Tensions (and laughs) are further heightened when tough, no-nonsense agent Sam Fuller (Regina King) is assigned to protect Hart.
But when her best friend and Miss USA pageant winner Cheryl Frazier and pageant organiser Sam Fields (William Shatner) are kidnapped, Gracie’s crime-fighting instincts kick back in!
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Here's what our members thought of this title. 5 stars = very good, 1 star = poor.
 |  | "I am not going out there as a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be Tina Turner. I can't afford therapy on my salary."
A sparkling comedy sequel from Hollywood sweetheart Sandra Bullock, Miss Congeniality 2 catches up with clumsy undercover cop Gracie Hart as, once again, she finds herself stuck between the worlds of in-your-face law enforcement and look-at-me show business. Says Bullock of returning to one of her most popular roles, "it was a relief to put on that blue suit again, the men's button-down, the orthopaedic shoes; to stand like a guy and pick your teeth if you feel like it. It's really liberating. That's one of the things I like about Gracie – she doesn't care what people think." Sparky and bright with a game supporting cast and lots of great one-liners, the movie opens just three weeks after the events of the last, even though in reality the movies were shot five years apart.
Newly single and not exactly loving it, Gracie's career is in crisis as it's hard to work effectively as an undercover agent if everyone knows who you are. Since foiling dastardly bombers at the Miss America Pageant (see Miss Congeniality), Gracie's a celebrity whether she likes it or not. Putting her newfound fame to good use, the FBI make Gracie their new public face, hurling her into a whirl of chat shows and public appearances. Accompanied by stylist Joel (Diedrich Bader) and reluctant bodyguard Sam (Regina King), Gracie succumbs to the 'celeb' lifestyle but snaps into action when Miss United States (Heather Burns) and pageant emcee Stan (William Shatner) are kidnapped and held for ransom.
"The reason for a sequel," says Bullock, who produced the movie with screenwriter Marc Lawrence, "is that Marc 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. We've talked about how the close friendships she formed at the pageant might change her life, or at least her perspective. There were so many scenarios. I wanted to finish the story we had begun."
"The first movie was all about character," adds Lawrence, explaining that, "essentially, the charm and humour of the film were in the indelible characters – not only Gracie but her pageant buddy Cheryl, who comes from nowhere to win the crown and Stan, the classic emcee, and the way they all sparked off one another. I believe a lot of people would be as interested as we were in seeing how Gracie has grown. What is she up to now?"
Shatner fans will no doubt be delighted to see the cult figure hamming it up as the hapless Stan. "I don't feel the public realize how brilliantly funny William Shatner is," suggests Bullock, whose pet name for the actor on set was Bubba. "He's like the goof in all of us. He plays Stan with such finesse, even if it means making himself look like a blubbering idiot. It takes a very smart person to do that. Truly, dumb people cannot play dumb."
New to the mix is hostile FBI agent Sam, forced to pair up with Gracie, a woman she simply cannot bear. Sounds like a buddy movie to us... "In thinking about what I wanted to see in the new movie," says Bullock, "one thing kept coming up for me: a partner. Specifically a female partner. Why should all the buddy movies be about guys? Why should they always get to do these great comedy pairings? We need to see women in these roles again. Plus, one of the themes is about friendship, and how friends can appear in the most unexpected and unlikely packages. They're not always the people who initially make a good first impression. Sometimes you want to kill them and they end up being your best friends."
Key among the movie's locations was Las Vegas. "That was the only way we could one-up ourselves," says Bullock honestly. "Where else can you find where everything is artificial and you have billions of dollars" worth of sparkle and lights, pirate ships and Venetian canals and all the glitz you can possibly imagine? There is nowhere else where you can find that kind of outrageous extravagance, and the people there were great in facilitating every wild idea we had. If we asked to blow up the east wing of a hotel they'd say, 'well, maybe just blow up the west wing because the east is at full occupancy.'"
Fans of the original can rest assured there's plenty to enjoy in the sequel. Particularly, obviously, Bullock, whose easy charm and comic timing make her impossible to dislike. Funny, fast and light, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous is classic feel good fare.
Click here for our Sandra Bullock Q&A
Click here for our Regina King Q&A
(C) 2005 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.
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