Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

If you liked "Love, Actually," you'll love this too, another small jewel in the crown of unabashedly commercial, cheerfully middlebrow, eminently exportable British fluff.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A jolly movie and I smiled pretty much all the way through, but it doesn't shift into high with a solid thunk the way "Bridget Jones' Diary" did.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

At its best at its most absurd.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A triumph of performance, production, and adaptation over the empty-calorie dither of its source material.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

The bright spot, again, is Grant.

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

The trouble with Bridget redux is also simple: Thai jail.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Doesn't have nearly enough Hugh Grant and is a little short on laughs, but it gets by on Renée Zellweger's charms.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Too bad Kidron, Fielding and company pay only cafe lip service to satire.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The Bridget Jones characters are worth revisiting. It's just too bad the story that connects them in The Edge of Reason is less fresh and clever than its predecessor.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Carefully re-creates the first movie's lightweight romance and mildly cheeky gender comedy.

Variety Derek Elley

Second time round, Bridget is still fat, funny and endearing -- but "all a bit, um, familiar, actually."

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Improbably, the sequel only ups the ante on its predecessor's comedy-of-embarrassment quotient.

Time Richard Schickel

We forgive Bridget the movie its obvious flaws because of its equally inescapable charm.

Washington Post Teresa Wiltz

Yes, it is v. funny. It's just not v. clever. And clever is what made the original Bridget Jones movie such a hoot.

Premiere Sara Brady

Bloated with too many pratfalls yet too little plot, and neutered of its most viciously hysterical moments.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Final verdict: Cast is excellent; movie is OK; men and women are soooo different.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

In case you were holding your breath, Renée Zellweger's Bridget Jones is still sweetly earnest, chronically overweight and swinging once again from lovestruck to lovelorn.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Begins by repeating many gags from the previous film. Only now they feel lame and routine.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The director, Beeban Kidron, handles the proceedings with an episodic aimlessness on par with Bridget's.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Leah McLaren

Rather than being one of us, this stumpy-legged dingbat is a realization of our worst social fears. Before we were laughing with her, and now we're laughing at her.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Die-hard fans are advised to wait for the video. Everyone else would be better off pretending that this movie doesn't exist. In the long run, you'll have a higher opinion of everyone involved.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The movie catches occasional fire when Bridget suddenly says what's really on her mind. The rest is silliness.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

An uninspired, sporadically funny adaptation that falls short of the book's winsome, frisky chaos.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Cute, cloying and catastrophically predictable.

Empire Caroline Westbrook

For the most part, Edge Of Reason is as saggy and well-worn as Bridget's big knickers.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Labored and dispiriting.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Takes the worst and most annoying elements of the first film and treats them like grand assets.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

This picture has an ugly habit of humiliating Bridget, which "Diary" did not.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

Has all the charm of a canceled CBS sitcom.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

When a sequel has to hit the reset button and take all its characters back to where they started, it probably didn't need to be made.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

One singularly unbecoming character, who should, by rights, forever remain a "singleton."

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Audiences enjoyed the original “Bridget Jones” because it hit close to home...But the sequel has about as much emotional depth as a sitcom

Salon.com Charles Taylor

So clumsy and crass that it makes you doubt the pleasure of the first movie.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A great role becomes an unenviable chore, in which a superb comic actress finds herself trying to sell a series of unfunny comic situations by mugging and pushing with all her might. It's an unflattering spectacle for all concerned.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Is it the clumsy script or the switch in directors -- Beeban Kidron in for Sharon Maguire -- that has sucked out the charm of the original and replaced it with crude pratfalls and enough shag gags to stuff the next three Austin Powers movies?

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Absurdly over the top and not especially funny.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Man, does this one make the first movie look like a masterpiece. What was Renée Zellweger thinking? It can't have been fun to put on all that weight, especially for a film as ghastly as this.