Bridget Jones’s Baby (15)

Three stars

Dir: Sharon Maguire

With: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey

Running time: 122mins

In a year that has already seen the return of past crowd pleasers such as Jason Bourne, Rocky Balboa and Nemo and Dory, it only seems fair that female audiences should get one of their favourites back too.

Step forward Bridget Jones, the endearing singleton who resonated so strongly when she first opened up her diary in 2001, before unnecessarily trying to sabotage her own success with a lamentable sequel.

The good news is that this belated third film is a marked improvement on that wretched, Thailand visiting follow-up, even if it struggles to recapture the magic of the original. It helps that Sharon Maguire, who helmed the first film, is back behind the camera.

But while fun and fleet-footed in places, Bridget Jones’s Baby often feels laboured in others. Some of the jokes are over-milked, while both the story and the character development are lazy.

The story picks up as Bridget (once more played by Renee Zellweger) is lamenting a 40th birthday spent alone. Former love of her life Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) is now married, while ex-lover Daniel Cleaver (an absent Hugh Grant) is not on the scene either.

Spurred on by a mischievous work colleague (Sarah Solemani), Bridget attends a music festival where she meets - via another typically Bridget-style pratfall - charming American billionaire Jack (Patrick Dempsey), with whom she subsequently enjoys a drunken night of passion. But their liaison seems destined to be a one night stand.

Weeks later, at a friend’s christening, Bridget gets fleetingly back together with Darcy but puts the brakes on anything more in a bid to avoid repeating past mistakes. That is until she finds herself pregnant and unsure of which man is the dad, which presents the dilemma at the heart of the film.

Co-written by Emma Thompson, Helen Fielding and Dan Lazer, Bridget Jones’s Baby is at its best when placing Bridget in the kind of excruciatingly awkward situations that have been a mainstay of British comedy since David Brent transformed the landscape with The Office. Watching Bridget humiliate herself in the name of love remains a guilty pleasure - and the more relatable the better (much like in the original).

But there are times when the film strains credibility too far, as her relationship with Dempsey’s Jack exemplifies. It’s way too contrived, with his character feeling more driven by the machinations of the lightweight plot rather than anything emotionally authentic. As a result, Bridget’s journey is just too predictable and poorly so. A scene in which Jack simultaneously makes a home for his new family, puts Bridget on the spot and then seemingly gives up quite literally strips the film - and its players - of any dramatic heft just when things were really getting interesting. But then why sacrifice a good time for anything too involving, as some of the best comedies (such as TV’s Friends) have been able to do?

Zellweger, for her part, invests Bridget with her usual charm and remains the right side of endearing, even though her much debated appearance does prove to be distracting (more so once a flashback occurs).

But Firth sometimes looks uninterested, his stiff upper lip nature rendering his character curiously lifeless. There are several moments, especially early on, when the actor wears the look of a man mindful of the pre-Oscar ghosts of rom-coms past, even though he does belatedly warm up for the slapstick finale. But even that comes with reservations, as certain plot developments (such as Dempsey’s unexplained return) once more seem lazily concocted.

It’s another failing of the film that the plot beats are too broad. There’s no risk element, right down to being able to predict that Thompson’s supporting turn as Bridget’s doctor will inevitably reward her with all the best lines and an obvious journey from stone-faced non-sympathiser to baby deliverer with a heart of gold.

But then maybe it’s simply expecting too much of Bridget Jones’s Baby to offer anything other than a feel-good night out for the girls ... the type of film - like Mamma Mia! or Love Actually - that exists to leave the men at home and offer feminist escapism no matter how glaring its flaws. If that’s the case, then mission accomplished.

Rob Carnevale