My Review of "Miss Congeniality"

Miss Congeniality is a fish out of water movie that came out back in 2000. A lot has changed since then. Our viewpoint with women and feminism has changed as long as work atmosphere. That's why it's kind of weird to see how wildly inappropriate a lot of this movie is. To be fair some of this stuff was very inappropriate back in the day but it's just much more apparent now than back then.

The movie starts off with an introduction to our main character Gracie. She's a young girl in school and she fights bullies in the school yard. Due to sexism in the playground she gets turned down when she helps a boy that she liked. I guess this is to introduce us to who she is now.

She's now a hard nosed FBI agent that is a bit of a loner. She's of course quite sloppy and klutzy as well. It's your stereotypical girl we know is beautiful but we need to do a makeover to make us recognize how beautiful she is. It's hard to make Sandra Bullock (who plays Gracie) look bad but they do their darndest to attempt to do this.

Anyways her department gets a tip that there's going to be some terrorist situation at the Miss America pageant. They need someone to go in undercover to get the real scoop as to what's going on. They couldn't find anyone that could possibly get in there except for Gracie.

Gracie is adamantly against the pageant because she doesn't see a need for them and that all the contestants are dumb. She's going to have to learn to get along as well as find some commonality with them as the movie progresses.

First there are certain things that you can find pretty messed up. The whole set up as to how they get Gracie to join in on the pageant is kind of messed up. I know they regard her as one of the boys but there's a lot of butt slapping going on throughout this movie. There's also that really cringy computer program thing that photoshops people into outfits.

The whole concept and logic behind a lot of this movie is pretty outrageous as well. You'll roll your eyes more often than you'd expect. Then again this is supposed to be a light hearted movie. It's not expected to make total sense and in some ways it's pretty funny when they're aware of themselves. I particularly chuckled when one of the contestants that Gracie befriends seems to be a bit of an airhead but she's studying in nuclear physics.

This movie is very much carried on the back of Sandra Bullock. She's the heart and soul of this movie and makes it quite entertaining. She has huge charisma and likeability in her character. It's hard not to be behind her because of this x factor that she carries. She makes everything that much more funny and draws you into each of the scenes she's in.

I found there were a few interesting twists in storytelling in this movie. Usually with a male protagonist we have the lead ditch the mission eventually. This one does the opposite, our heroine sticks to her guns and it makes her seem like a more honorable and likeable character.

If you're going to watch this movie you kind of know what you're getting yourself into. It's not expected to be a masterpiece. It's a fun popcorn film to entertain you and it's got a very good runtime length.

Overall, I think this movie accomplished what they were expecting to accomplish. That's to entertain people and I was entertained. I had a fun time watching this mainly because there was a lot of heart and fun while watching it. That's why I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It's not the best out there but it does enough to make it differentiate itself from the rest.