Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous

Five years ago, Sandra Bullock starred in the surprise hit Miss Congeniality, a movie about a female cop protecting a beauty pageant by being a contestant on it. I have to admit, it was funny, and overall a very good movie, so it's no surprise that, just like Legally Blonde and Bridget Jones Diaries to name a few others targeted to same audience, we're getting a sequel. It's also no surprise that like those other movies' sequels, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous is not as good as its predecessor, but is still good enough.

There's a new formula though, as instead of having Gracie Hart (Bullock) saving someone all by herself, we add Regina King as FBI Agent Sam Fuller, and we have a female buddy cop movie.
It turns out that pageant host Stan Fields (William Shatner) and current Miss United States Cheryl Frasier (Heather Burns- who was crowned in the first movie over Gracie) have been kidnapped, and they're going to be killed. Gracie can't work on the case because she's screwing up every case she works on as a result of her being famous now, and instead of catching the bad guys, she has people asking her for an autograph. Because of that, she is named the face of the FBI, so she can give the agency a face the public like, and so she can do something instead of work in a desk.
But she wants to rescue Cheryl, so she gets Sam, who's working as her bodyguard because nobody wants to work with her for being antisocial, and together they try to solve the case and bond at the same time. Also helping is Gracie's new stylist Joel (Diedrich Bader), and Jeff Foreman (Enrique Murciano), the FBI agent in charge of them while in Texas.

Funny again is Bullock, though you can tell she's getting older and doesn't look as good as in the first movie but she can still give a good comedic performance.
Heather Burns and William Shatner are all tied up most of the time but when they get to say something is always funny, specially Burns. Also really funny was Diedrich Bader, who got most of the laughs.
The only one I didn't like was Regina King. Now, I'm not a big fan of hers, mostly because every time I see a movie with her she's always mad and looks angry. I don't know why but I can't get myself to like her. And she's fresh from her acclaimed performance in Ray, where she was really good, but I have to say that I liked the other two actresses better in that movie.

So I have to say I liked it. It had the good characters we liked from the first movie (bye bye Benjamin Bratt), added new good characters, and there were some really funny parts. If they keep it like this, I could see myself liking Sandra Bullock and the rest of the guys going for the trilogy.