Again, I don’t’ reiterate because the plot is so interesting – it’s absolutely not – it’s that it is so fucking improbable, to use the parlance of the film, that one finds it hard to get into this sequel at all. Yes, most sequels suck, it’s true, but one expected so much more after what was, at least in this reviewer’s opinion, a terrific start with the first film. The first Bridget Jones film became a sort of cultural phenomenon with young singles everywhere who found themselves relating and at last found a heroine who was perfect in her imperfections.
Here, all we have is a seeming dink of a woman who seems to care about little else other than sex and big, elastic panties that will hold in her slightly large tummy and oh, whether or not her boyfriend his cheating. Her career is of little import and she seems to lack the spunk and independence she had in the first film. In short, Bridget seems less genuine and more shallow in every way. Yes, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth are professionals and do a good job in their roles – the only two performances that somewhat save this film, and one is surprised that Zellwegger can’t pull this off given her own breadth of experience. As to the rest of the cast (the single friends, the office crew, Bridget’s boss), it seems the success of the first film has gone to their collective heads: Everyone seems sleeker, more toned, and more tanned and just more like movie stars and less like the real characters they are supposed to be playing and played so well in the first film. To boot, the characters we liked so much from film number 1 – the mother, father, Auntie Una and so on have receded far into the background.
I’ve said enough: too much, no doubt. See the film out of curiosity if you must, but don’t see it with any real expectation that it will give you the warm fuzzies in the way the first film did so well that left you wanting to see it again and again. This one will leave you wanting. How sad that our Bridget, it seems, has lost so much of the depth and dimension.
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