Miss Congeniality (2000)
Directed by Donald Petrie
When the local FBI office receives a letter from a terrorist known only as 'The Citizen', it's quickly determined that he's planning his next act at the Miss America beauty pageant. Because tough-as-nails Gracie Hart is the only female agent at the office, she's chosen to go undercover as the contestant from New Jersey.
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9 films that influenced Miss Congeniality
What critics say influenced Miss Congeniality
In this latest plagiarism of The Ugly Duckling and Pygmalion, there's a serial terrorist on the loose.
Miss Congeniality also steals shamelessly from Pygmalion (Vic making over Gracie from an ugly duckling cop into a stunning, statuesque beauty), but truncates the process to the point where it loses its appeal.
You would never guess it from the trailer, but "Miss Congeniality" was probably inspired by either the musical "My Fair Lady" or its inspiration, George Bernard Shaw's stage play "Pygmalion."
"Miss Congeniality" has a hard time getting past its by-the-numbers, routine plot that pulls in the usual chestnuts of undercover cop tale, "My Fair Lady," fish-out-of-water story and, for good measure, a romance.
Little surprise, really, that Miss Congeniality was not only better as My Fair Lady , but also better as a straight farce a year earlier with Drop Dead Gorgeous .
Petrie made the quirkily enjoyable Mystic Pizza more than a decade ago but has since been responsible for such lifeless and lightweight bombs as Richie Rich and My Favorite Martian.
Phoning in this Pygmalian update with by-the-numbers storytelling and uninspired direction, Donald Petrie (" Grumpy Old Men ," " Mystic Pizza ") fails to mine the comic gold here, instead opting for easy laughs and predictable motions with such an obvious target.
It's impossible to absolve someone when they wear those hats - some of the disapprobation goes to director Donald Petrie (Grumpy Old Men), but the lion's portion is reserved for Bullock.
Director Donald Petrie (Grumpy Old Men) does nothing flashier than get out of the way of the jokes.
This new disc comes with two full-length commentary tracks, a funny one by Bullock and the co-screenwriter Marc Lawrence, and a second one by director Donald Petrie (Grumpy Old Men).
Unfortunately, director Donald Petrie (of "Grumpy Old Men" fame) can't figure out how to make similar hay out of Candice Bergen, who, as pageant director Kathy Morningside, never rises above the stereotype of a shrewish washed-up beauty queen.
Phoning in this Pygmalian update with by-the-numbers storytelling and uninspired direction, Donald Petrie (" Grumpy Old Men ," " Mystic Pizza ") fails to mine the comic gold here, instead opting for easy laughs and predictable motions with such an obvious target.
But damn director Donald Petrie ("Grumpy Old Men," "Richie Rich") for mistaking Michael Ritchie's 1975 pageant-palooza "Smile" for some Steven Bochco cop show.
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From It Happened One Night to What's Up, Doc?, the real frisson that underpinned the pleasure of such movies lay not in the love story's "will they, won't they" plotting, but in the skillful ways each script pushed to the limits the public constructions of the value of female virginity and the dangers of male sexuality and swathed the all-too-hokey "happily ever after" denouements in sparkling irony.
From It Happened One Night to What's Up, Doc?, the real frisson that underpinned the pleasure of such movies lay not in the love story's "will they, won't they" plotting, but in the skillful ways each script pushed to the limits the public constructions of the value of female virginity and the dangers of male sexuality and swathed the all-too-hokey "happily ever after" denouements in sparkling irony.
Together they play "Pygmalion" or -- with Julia Roberts' actual man, Benjamin Bratt, on love-interest duty -- "Pretty Woman."
Shorn of such subtext, however, the tricky, vindictive women (such as Julia Roberts' character in My Best Friend's Wedding) and the unreconstructed chauvinists (Bratt's character in this film) appear as the kind of people whom any halfway intelligent, reasonably humane person would avoid even in extremis.
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Back then, the press duly labeled her as "the next Julia Roberts," but thanks to a string of less than impressive turkeys like "Hope Floats," "Forces of Nature," and "Practical Magic," she never lived up to her potential.
The screenplay, by Marc Lawrence ("Forces of Nature"), Katie Ford and Caryn Lucas, features F.B.I. agents who act like a pack of frat boys (their mission is named Operation Thong), an unappealing love interest, the heroine stumbling over her heels over and over and over, an easily detected false suspect, and forty-eight contestants with no personality (Heather Burns as Cheryl, Miss Rhode Island, is the only one who's the least bit fleshed out).
The formulaic screenplay (credited to Marc " Forces of Nature " Lawrence, Katie "Mary & Rhoda" Ford and Caryn " The Nanny " Lucas) has some inspired moments, like Gracie's water glass act and her emergency Starbucks run, but the bulk of the writing and set pieces need serious bathing suit padding.
Sandra Bullock, longtime star and recent producer of fluffy, inconsequential comedies, continues unabated with the fluffy and inconsequential Miss Congeniality, written by Marc Lawrence ( Forces of Nature ), modeling industry exec Katie Ford, and TV writer Caryn Lucas, and directed by Donald Petrie, who has helmed comedies such as Grumpy Old Men and My Favorite Martian .