Starring: Renιe Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant (I)

5 out of 10 stars

It's tempting to start off a review of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason with a dash of Bridgetspeak, that shorthand the erstwhile Ms. Jones uses to catalog her daily ups and downs: vg (very good), vb (very bad), gaaaaaaaaah! (guttural sound of disappointment/embarrassment/frustration), singletons (single people), smug marrieds (exactly what they are), etc. However, the problem with doing such is that The Edge of Reason, continuing the further exploits of the most hapless singleton in the UK, is neither vg nor vb. To employ two other singular letters, it's just kind of ok.

Sequilitis has indeed struck this follow-up to Bridget Jones's Diary, and while it's certainly not a crippling case, this movie decidedly runs a bit of a high fever, enough to make you just this side uncomfortable and wonder what exactly went wrong. This was, unfortunately, to be expected, since both the movie and the Helen Fielding novel it's based on set their bar rather way too high with the most daunting of romantic comedy tasks: what happens after the happily ever after? Shrek 2 notwithstanding, it's something very few movies have been able to tackle effectively, since the whole point of a romantic comedy is in the tension of bringing two people together. And when everything has reached its crescendo, there's really nowhere to go but down. Or, in the best-case scenario, sideways, which is where The Edge of Reason most often finds itself: a mostly agreeable mishmash and reshaping of Bridget experiences and humiliations that lead our heroine down a long and winding road to... exactly the same place she started.

Once you've made your peace with the fact that this movie is more about the journey and not the destination, there are some joys to be had in The Edge of Reason, namely Renee Zellweger, who earned her first Oscar nomination and most of her worldwide affection for this role and steps into it again as easily as her standard pair of grandma-style panties. And really, despite the fact that there are numerous supporting characters put into their orbit, most returning from the previous film, this movie is essentially just a pas de trois between Bridget and the two men in her life, swoony dreamboat Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and nightmare schooner of lust Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). Starting out in the blissful weeks of post-consummation between Bridget and Mark, The Edge of Reason immediately begins pointing out the cracks in this seemingly perfect union, as both discover each is not as perfect as they'd imagined. Well, it's not quite like that – Bridget is still Bridget, but she discovers that Mark is a) stuffy; b) circumspect; c) not overtly emotional or affectionate; d) easily flustered by her antics; e) folds his underwear before going to bed; and f) is given to stony smoldering looks that could convey either raging disappointment or deep, abiding love. Paranoia, doubt, and wild flailing about ensues.

The fact that Firth is playing Mark exactly the same way he did in the first movie gives you pause on a number of levels. It leaves you to wonder if this is the same Bridget from the first movie (or if she even saw it), since Mark is well, absolutely no different than before – is she now so daft as her insecure ego leads her to believe? It also saddens you that Firth, who let wonderful glimmers of Mark's non-lawyer feelings shine through his granite surface in the first movie, doesn't seem capable of or interested in doing more this time around. Most disagreeably, though, it shows that the filmmakers – namely director Beeban Kidron – haven't bothered to mine their characters for any depth, and have just decided to concentrate on the farcical aspects of the romance. These are all well and good, as we get to watch Bridget skydive into a pile of manure for her TV show "Sit Up, Britain", arrive at an important lawyer dinner with make-up askew, stalk Mark through his skylight, and most enjoyably, attempt to pass herself off as a professional skier on a Swiss mini-break. By about the time you get to Switzerland, though, where Bridget is vexed by Mark's stunning new co-worker Rebecca (willowy Jacinda Barrett), your patience will be sorely tested, most likely in proportion to your love of Zellweger.

Thankfully, blissfully, at about the point you're considering throwing in the towel, along saunters Grant's Daniel, a lothario that you love to hate – or rather, hate to love, because he's just that seductively toxic. Resurrected from the first film as Bridget's new television co-worker (apparently that publishing career didn't work out), the two are dispatched to Thailand to work together on a new travel show. Saddened by her break-up with Mark, Bridget finds solace with Daniel, who seems more understanding, sporadically mature, and downright sexier than he ever did before – is this the guy she's meant to be with, the messed-up one who confesses she's the best shag he's ever had? It's a tempting notion, and Grant takes the possibility and runs with it above and beyond the movie's parameters. Despite being so utterly charming in rom-com after rom-com, he still yet again manages to pull a deep magnetism out of his part as Daniel, and in making him so deliciously naughty and bawdy (his tossed-off one-liners are some of the raunchiest and most hilarious in recent memory), he gets you to side with him in his quest for Bridget in a minimal amount of time.

Well, of course, despite this tempting scenario, it's just not meant to be, and after this brief Bridget-Daniel reverie (the only time the movie feels truly relaxed and spontaneous), the plot kicks into high gear again, throwing Bridget into a Thai prison on false drug charges, and then shipping her back to England, where she's determined to win Mark all over again – not that she really needs to put a huge effort into that, seeing as he's such a smitten kitten he's practically purring underneath his stiff suits. And ultimately, that's why The Edge of Reason tires you out, for despite the number of obstacles or embarrassing situations thrown in Bridget's way, there's never any, any question of how things will turn out and, most distressingly, it's all happening in the same way again, down to the Mark-Daniel fistfight and Bridget's last-minute dash to profess her love to Mark. And most sadly of all, Bridget and the people in her world are suddenly less smart than they used to be, not to mention the filmmakers. This is never more clear than in the embarrassing situations Bridget finds herself in – before, you could find yourself empathizing with the hapless heroine, but now the focus seems to be on counting off the number of ways Bridget can be humiliated, and the humor takes a rather snobbish, point-and-laugh feeling. In rehashing Bridget Jones, The Edge of Reason forgot the most important rom-com rule of all: love your heroine, don't make fun of her.