The last time we met FBI agent Gracie Hart she had disarmed a terrorist threat against the Miss United States Pageant while working undercover as a contestant.

However, reeling from a broken romance and her newfound fame causing a tricky hostage situation during a bank raid, she realises she needs a change.

Her boss talks her into becoming "the Face of the FBI", a coiffed and manicured advert for the bureau wheeled out on talk shows across the USA.

Keeping her looking her best her retinue includes a crack team of personal stylists, gay makeover maestro Joel (Diedrich Bader)…and bodyguard Sam Fuller (Regina King).

She's a tough Chicago cop sent to New York after "anger management issues" - and she doesn't take too kindly to FBI Barbie's prima donnish inclinations.

However, more pressing matters arrive when a couple of Las Vegas hoodlums kidnap Miss United States (Cheryl Frazier) and her MC Stan (William Shatner).

Sequalitis is the curse of Hollywood and worst-case scenarios result in the likes of Legally Blonde 2. However, this outing is a follow-on worthy of the original.

Bullock, whose stock has been on the slide after a series of duds (who in their right mind would agree to Speed II), is back at her kooky best.

King provides the perfect emotional foil as her bitter rival-turned-buddy-by-the-end and there's good support from Bader and Treat Williams as the FBI's slimy Vegas boss.

Director John Pasquin guides the action with a firm hand and never lets the narrative run away - a common fault of sequels.

There's some good lines, too. A TV host comments that for an FBI agent she doesn't look like bureau boss and closet tranny J Edgar Hoover. "But this is his dress," deadpans Bullock.

By the end we've had to trudge through some stars'n'stripes ickiness but that's par for the course. And with dialogue of this quality, we can live with it.

Amenable and congenial. Enjoy.

Tim Evans