In her surprise hit Miss Congeniality, Sandra Bullock played FBI agent Gracie Hart, who went undercover as a contestant at the Miss United States beauty pageant, the better to protect America from terrorism, if not from silly movies.

Had she succeeded in the latter mission, we might have been spared Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, a lightweight film, though not a life-threatening one. This time around, as part of a PR offensive to improve the beleaguered agency's image, the reluctant Gracie is recruited by her boss to be "the new face of the FBI." Or as Gracie, who's assigned her own round-the-clock personal stylist and booked onto the talk-show circuit, disdainfully puts it, to be "FBI Barbie."

"FBI Joan Rivers" is more like it. Gracie may spend part of the movie trying to crack a kidnapping case, but Bullock, an irrepressible cutup, understands that her real job here is to crack wise. "You don't look like J. Edgar Hoover," Regis Philbin tells a glammed-up Gracie when she drops by his show dressed in a miniskirt and stiletto heel go-go boots. "That's funny," she replies, "because this is his dress." Or later, when someone manhandles her luggage, she scolds, "Please be careful. My guns are in that Fendi."

Keeping Bullock garbed in custom-tailored gags is the job of her frequent collaborator, screenwriter Marc Lawrence, the author of three of her previous films, including the original Miss Congeniality. Lawrence may not be Preston Sturges, but he does understand Bullock's comic gifts, as well as her everygirl appeal. When Gracie goes from ugly duckling to swan, we go with her; when she shucks it all to be who she truly is, a smart tomboy who snorts when she laughs, she lets us feel superior to all the celebrities and supermodels she's been spoofing.

While they're at it, Lawrence and director John Pasquin also send up cop films like Lethal Weapon, pairing Gracie with an FBI bodyguard (Regina King) so uncongenial she's named for a legendary tough guy, filmmaker Sam Fuller. This Sam Fuller has little patience for Gracie's proclivity for pausing in front of mirrors to check her makeup. Nor does she cut Gracie much slack over her breakup with Agent Eric Matthews (played in the first film by Benjamin Bratt, who's nowhere to be seen in the sequel). "Plenty of guys have broken up with me," Sam scoffs. "You just beat 'em up and move on."

Both Bullock and King handle their one-liners with aplomb, as do Diedrich Bader as Gracie's "Queer Eye" stylist and Heather Ward as the sweet-natured Miss United States. But Miss Congeniality 2 is considerably less than its frequent funny bits, because it lacks the qualities the FBI reportedly prides itself on: discipline and drive. Instead of reaching for real satire, the film settles for sit-com humor, easy targets and a pat ending. It's also guilty of some serious lapses in judgment, including an extended sequence in which Gracie chases Dolly Parton through the garish lobby of a Las Vegas hotel, a scene that's meant to be uproarious but that's really just embarrassing. Miss Congeniality 2 claims to be fabulous, but like a lot of sequels it feels all too familiar.