Review: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason


Bridget (a surprisingly charmless Renee Zellweger, once again with an inappropriate upper-class accent) is back in the sequel no one really needed. She’s happily shagging the awfully nice but frightfully dour Colin Firth, but suspects he might be involved with gorgeous co-worker Jacinda Barrett. It gets worse, when likeable cad Hugh Grant turns up, now a TV travelogue presenter whom Bridget’s boss wants to pair her up with on-screen. Wussy fist-fights, excursions into Thai prisons, copious amounts of cigarette smoke, unfortunate skiing incidents, and a lesbian kiss (woo-hoo!) ensue.


Bloated, very ordinary sequel to a not very entertaining film, this 2004 Beeban Kidron film is a tired re-tread, and occasionally really desperate. Film’s nadir finds Bridget in a Thai prison teaching local prisoners the words to Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’. An utterly tasteless moment. Only the scene-stealing Grant (appearing in a film that his character isn’t even really meant to be in, but he’s having fun anyway), and a surprisingly more comfortable Firth (whose character was stuffy in the first, but he played it like someone had just farted in his face) are any good. Barrett has charm but an underdeveloped character. Shame, hers is the most interesting role, even if I spotted the big twist a mile away). Zellweger is saddled with a character that I frankly didn’t like the first time around (she borders on detestable and unbelievably self-centred here, then again, I hated Scarlett O’Hara too!). Her constantly smoking friends are thankfully given short shrift here, and Jim Broadbent might as well not have even turned up.


Not funny, not charming, and only intermittently watchable. The screenplay is by Andrew Davies, Richard Curtis (“Four Weddings and a Funeral”, writer-director of “Love Actually”), Adam Brooks, and Helen Fielding, from her novel.

 

Rating: C

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more