Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous

Always carry a bowie knife if you've got a feathered tail.

This movie had moments. The woman who does the voice of Riley and Huey Freeman reluctantly portraying Tina Turner, with Sandra Bullock behind her moving her arms in a Tina-eque fashion – nice. The metatextualism of folks commenting on the Shatner's singing – nice. There was even a visual shout out to Star Trek's "The Voyage Home" that I found quite charming. The frantic car chase to save the victims with a dancer's feathered headdress streaming out of the skylight; good fun. I'm a sucker for a costume drama that involves fights and shiny things. And I do like the way Sandra snorts.

But . . . it just didn't cohere. It couldn't decide if it was supposed to be slapstick or comic drama; couldn't decide if it was absurdist or plausible. The lead's transformation into a glamor queen just wasn't psychologically or dramatically convincing.

There was true talent in this film. Real charisma. But it was lazy. One more hard edit of the script, and I think this could have been a fine film. But someone started filming before they had that final edit, and no one made up for it anywhere along the line.