But since we had a leftover free movie coupon from our local library combined with a soft spot for Renee Zellweger.....why not?
We won't waste any time belaboring the previous two Bridget Jones movies, cause frankly, we barely remember anything about them. The popular consensus deems the first film a great rom-com and the second one a dreary, unfunny suck-fest. Okay, we'll take everyone's word for it. Here's all we remember: Renee put on enough weight so she looked like a live version of a Mrs.Butterworth pancake syrup bottle and did one hell of a Brit accent for someone originally from Texas. Also, she fell down a lot and suffered through a barrage of humiliating incidents that would drive any normal human being to either suicide or five pints of Haagen Dazs..
Good news: this third movie brings the funny back. As you wild and crazy internet kids say, we LOL'd frequently. Bridget's a TV news producer now, which affords her and her staff the opportunity to perpetrate numerous news segments gone embarrassingly awry......youtube fodder for those hungry for epic fails. And within the space of a few days, she falls into bed with repressed tightass love-of-her-life Mark Darcy (Colin Firth)......and also humps it up with a billionaire internet matchmaking guru Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey) Rendered pregnant by one of these encounters, Bridget's forced to romantically juggle her two rival, potential baby-daddies,..... much to the dry bemusement of her sarcastic Ob-Gyn...(the movie's MVP Emma Thompson, stealing her scenes and also punching up the script with who knows how many killer gag lines.)
What struck us about the movie most: holy mid-life crisis, everyone in this movie has aged way past the typical mid-20's to mid-30's expiration date for rom-coms. Why, they're all.....dare we say it......middle aged! And the three leads are unashamedly unafraid to look their age. As an autumnal baby boomer, we automatically warmed up to "Bridget Jones's Baby", but we doubt the movie's going to kick off a trend.......not here in the U.S. anyway, where Bridget's box-office tanked. The movie did find more favor in the U.K. and Europe, so who knows....maybe we'll see some foreign-produced romancers with actors who've been around the block a few times. Maybe a remake of "Notting Hill" with Dame Judi Dench and Patrick Stewart......
BQ never expected much from this film, so the amount of genuine laughs we extracted from it took us by surprise. Comfortable, familiar stuff, smoothly delivered (along with a baby) by a winning cast. 3 & 1/2 stars (*** 1/2) And riotous jokes at the expense of Hugh Grant, who doesn't even show up in this one......
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