MISS CONGENIALITY

About as substantial as the middle of a Polo mint, and with considerably less depth or wit, the horrific Sandra Bullock vehicle Miss Congeniality wastes no time in drilling a hole in your head - it sets the viewer's spirits sinking within the first few minutes before embarking on a voyage of tortuous non-stop tedium the like of which hasn't been exposed to mankind since Chris O'Donnell's The Bachelor.

Trading a little too blatantly on its heroine's supposed 'ordinary girl' persona, the movie - nominally a knockabout comedy - stars Bullock as a scruffy, tomboyish FBI agent who is required to go undercover as a Miss America contestant when said beauty-pageant is targeted by unscrupulous bombers. She spends the first hour or so bumbling around as clumsily and gracelessly as possible and snorting like a pig when anything amuses her - until, as the plot demands, she shaves her legs and ditches her baggy sweaters for a slinky dress, to what is presumably supposed to be a collective audience 'wow!'

By that stage, only the cast and crew's immediate family, the terminally thick and those who watch this shit for a living will have stayed in their seats. The featherweight tone is fair enough in the context of a movie like this, but what can't be forgiven is the barren and bone-stupid script, lacking any shading of character at all, and devoid of even the faintest comedic competence.

The uniquely punchable Benjamin Bratt (Julia Roberts' hubby) sneers and smarms throughout to immensely annoying effect, while Michael Caine's turn as a disgraced beauty-pag expert is well beyond parody. Bullock, needless to say, sleepwalks through the motions with the same combination of goofy charm and utter dullness which has rendered her arguably the least interesting A-list actor of her entire generation, and the whole affair, once the credits roll, fades instantly from the memory and into outer space without leaving the faintest imprint on your consciousness. Too flimsy and throwaway to even be offensive, Miss Congeality is as bad as it gets.