Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Poor Renée Zellweger. She had to eat pancake after pancake, hoagie after hoagie to reprise her role as Bridget Jones in the inevitable sequel to Bridget Jones’s Diary, and the result isn’t worth the strain on her little body. Watching this subpar film with the taste of maple syrup still nestling in her binge-eating mouth must’ve given her one helluva stomach ache. While I found the character of Bridget endearing in the original, she got on my nerves this time out, nothing but a punchline for fat jokes and public humiliation. Hugh Grant’s bad-boy character makes a welcome return, and Colin Firth garners a laugh here and there, but seemingly anything involving Bridget is embarrassing to watch. An opening sequence where she winds up skydiving into pig shit gets things started on a sour note, and by the time she winds up in a Thai prison on a drug bust, things have become rather ridiculous. Zellweger claims to be taking a break after filming this one, and that’s probably a good idea.