Renée Zellweger shines in ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’

Let us get over the silly fact that this movie essentially had to press reboot on the happy ending of the second film, when Bridget said how even at 33 she was able to find love and happiness with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). What’s a girl to do? I wanted to go back to school I wanted to do things that you can’t really make time for when you’re in the cycle of making films.

Most of the cast from the first two movies have returned for “Bridget Jones’s Baby”; Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, Sally Phillips, Shirley Henderson and James Callis are all back in their roles, with new additions from Patrick Dempsey as the charming but annoying Jack and Sarah Solemani as Bridget’s rather amusing and fearless new friend Miranda. Cut to 12 years later (between movies), Bridget is in her 40s and Mark Darcy has gone off and married someone else.

The fitfully amusing, intermittently entertaining screenplay by Dan Mazer, Fielding, and Emma Thompson – the latter also playing a supporting role as Bridget’s brusque obstetrician – is based not on the series’ third book (Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy), but instead on a number of independent columns by Fielding and it manages to stand alone sufficiently for viewers who haven’t seen the earlier installments.

Why? Because the movie is not based on it.

Fans will be pleased to know that the new movie, Bridget Jones’s Baby, is very amusing. That sound you hear is us buying our advance tix now. You won’t regret taking “Bridget Jones’s Baby” out for a spin.

Numbing herself with self-pity and chardonnay, Bridget gets dragged (actually, shanghaied) to an outdoor music festival, where she pretty literally stumbles into bed with Jack (Patrick Dempsey, yes, still McDreamy), who turns out to be a wealthy entrepreneur.

Luckily, they persevered, with Patrick Dempsey subbing in for Grant and creating a love rivalry that majors on passive aggression rather than the Cleaver/Darcy scraps of old.

ET spoke to Zellweger at the premiere, who flaunted her slim figure in a strapless Schiaparelli dress. At 43, she’s still the flustered ditz she was in her 20s, still unattached, and still prone to make a fool of herself by blurting out indiscretions or falling in the mud.

Dempsey earlier told WSVN that he had quite a challenging role to fill because audiences are already acquainted with Bridget and Mark, so they might be wary of his newcomer. Thompson also shows up in the film and gets some of the biggest laughs as the astute OB-GYN who quickly catches on to Bridget’s dilemma.

BOTTOM LINE: What a treat it is to dive back into the cozy world of Bridget Jones, who is the kind of old friend you can pick up with right where it left off, no matter how long it’s been.

All in all, Zellweger sums up, “She’s still perfectly imperfect”.

Bridget Jones’s Baby aims to do both, resulting in something of an identity crisis-encapsulated neatly in the contrasts of a jukebox soundtrack that lurches from karaoke classics of the sort featured in the first film (“We Are Family”, “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now”, “Walk on By”) to the likes of Ed Sheeran, Pharrell, and Rihanna, and then back to Burt Bacharach and Marvin Gaye.