'Bridget' sequel more of the same

Toward the end of the exactly-what-you'd-expect sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, our titular heroine finds herself in a Bangkok jail (don't ask). Here, having suffered every variety of humiliation - and a bum rap - she bonds with a crowded cell of Thai women, several of whom actually get speaking lines. The plucky Brit (played once more, of course, by the plucky Yank, Renée Zellweger) teaches them the chorus of a Madonna hit, and, as a parting gift (you didn't think she was going to stay, did you?), hands out copies of the battle-of-the-sexes tome Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

Which only underscores the obvious: the second Bridget Jones, like 2001's Bridget Jones's Diary, is a movie for Venusians.

Adapted from the Helen Fielding follow-up novel, Edge of Reason opens with a weak homage to The Sound of Music before plopping Bridget, now a TV journalist, into a huge pile of pig excrement. (She's been parachuting - on camera.) Although the movie continues in said vein - drenching the star with buckets of rain whenever she's about to make an important entrance in a nice outfit - things are actually working out well for the wee-bit-chubby, chain-smoking, esteem-challenged career gal.

She's been going out with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) for "six glorious weeks," and staying in with him, too. The shagging has been excellent, we're told (courtesy of ye olde "Dear Diary" voice-over device). But, since there has to be a movie, and hence, a semblance of a story, the question is proffered: "What happens after you walk off into the sunset?" Is the man of your dreams - a noble, sensitive human-rights lawyer - the man of your waking hours, too?

Well, what happens is that Bridget finds cause for jealousy (a leggy and luminous law partner, played by Jacinda Barrett). And, prodded by her Greek chorus of caricature pals (Shirley Henderson, Sally Phillips and James Callis) and her own nagging self-doubts, a breakup with Darcy looms. Enter that cad and bounder Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant, in über-Hugh-Grant mode), the devilish charmboy who would like nothing more than to get another view of Bridget's "giant panties."

Edge of Reason has been directed, unremarkably so, by Beeban Kidron, who reassembles the original's supporting cast (including thankless turns for Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones as Bridget's parents) and troops them through various ostensibly comedic episodes. The story follows its puffy-cheeked protagonist as she makes unflattering wardrobe decisions and ill-timed, impolitic public declarations. She unwittingly drops psychedelics on a Thai beach, and drops her guard when curly-coiffed Cleaver comes along. With its "naughty" sex talk and italicized Britishisms (sticky wickets and spotted dicks, insufferable twits and wobbly bits), Bridget Jones is cute, cloying and catastrophically predictable.

Or maybe that's satisfyingly predictable - if you happen to not hail from Mars, as I do.

Contact movie critic Steven Rea

at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.

Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/stevenrea.

Bridget Jones:

The Edge of Reason

** (out of four stars)

Produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Jonathan Cavendish, directed by Beeban Kidron, written by Andrew Davies, Helen Fielding, Richard Curtis and Adam Brooks, photography by Adrian Biddle, music by Harry Gregson-Williams, distributed by Universal Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour, 46 mins.

Bridget Jones. . . Renée Zellweger

Mark Darcy. . . Colin Firth

Daniel Cleaver. . . Hugh Grant

Rebecca. . . Jacinda Barrett

Parent's guide: R (profanity, sex, adult themes)

Playing at: area theaters