Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio Featurette-A Smooth Guide To Exotic Thailand Featurette-The Big Fight Quiz-Who's Your Man! Audio Commentary-Beeban Kidron (Director) Featurette-The Mini-Break To Austria Deleted Scenes-With Director's Introduction Featurette-Mark And Bridget: Forever? Featurette-Bridget Jones Interviews Colin Firth Featurette-Lonely London Trailer-Wimbledon, Meet The Fockers
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	103:05
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (71:06)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Beeban Kidron
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Renée Zellweger Hugh Grant Colin Firth James Faulkner Celia Imrie Dominic McHale Jim Broadbent Gemma Jones Shirley Dixon Neil Pearson Rosalind Halstead Luis Soto Tom Brooke
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Stephen Barton Toby Chu Harry Gregson-Williams

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Italian Spanish Portuguese English Audio Commentary Italian Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary Portuguese Audio Commentary English Titling Italian Titling Spanish Titling	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    After the runaway success of Bridget Jones's Diary it was only natural a sequel would quickly be in the making. Considering author Helen Fielding had also penned another novel about the trials of tribulations of the romantically desperate, overweight social misfit Bridget Jones, it is a little surprising we had to wait three years after the 2001 film to again visit with the chubby Bridget and her mates.

    Bridget Jones - Edge Of Reason picks up six weeks, four days and seven hours (or 71 shags) after the climax of the 2001 hit film, with Bridget (Renee Zellweger) initially very content with her new life and the attention she is receiving from the irresistible Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). But Bridget isn't wholly comfortable with the way things are going. She has this nagging doubt that Mark really loves her, still finding him at times to be hopelessly snooty and up himself. Her lingering self-doubt is not helped when she learns that Rebecca, a lovely young, slim and highly sexy lawyer has been spending an awful lot of time with her man of late. As a result Bridget is becoming insanely jealous and highly insecure.
   
    To make matters worse, her boss at the silly breakfast television show Sit Up Britain has decreed she must travel to Thailand to help film a series of travel segments for the show. The problem is she will be working with that cad of all cads Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). The trip to Thailand does not turn out as planned with Cleaver again showing his true colours when it comes to relationships and Bridget sampling the delights of some illicit substances before winding up in a Thai prison charged with drug smuggling offences. Just who will come to her rescue - the lecherous cad Cleaver or the dashing human rights lawyer Darcy is the big question set to be answered before the credits role.

    This film was a major disappointment for me. It relied far too heavily on the same set of slapstick jokes (big knickers, fight scene between Cleaver and Darcy, Bridget's inability to do anything without looking like a klutz) to be anything even remotely resembling original. To make matters worse, the jokes just fell flat on numerous occasions and the whole third act played out in the Thai prison was a wholly contrived and just plain silly sequence that was merely created to provide the final two minute climax.

    The waste of the marvellous supporting cast was another massive negative. The wonderful Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones as Bridget's dorky yet loving parents were completely wasted in this outing, almost to the point of there being no reason to include them, and yet they played such an important role in the original. Bridget's friends were also underused, despite her friend Shazza (Sally Phillips) escorting her to Thailand and seemingly cured of her need to use the F word four times in every sentence.

    Easily one of the disappointments of the year. Maybe they should have waited another three years and tried to get the story right before foisting this half-baked set of slapstick jokes upon us.

Video

    An average video transfer is about all that can be said about this release. It is not top shelf by any means, which is a little disappointing.

    Not the norm for romantic comedies, this transfer is presented in an aspect of 2.35:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    It is a reasonably sharp transfer on most occasions, but with the odd wider shot looking a tad softer than average. There is a little edge enhancement present. Shadow detail is excellent with well-defined images throughout. Grain is probably the most obvious problem, with the numerous interior background displaying a light smattering of pixelisation almost all of the time. There is no low level noise.

    Colours are excellent, especially the bright and gaudy streetscape of Thailand. There are no oversaturation or bleeding problems.

    Aliasing is present, albeit in a very minor capacity. This is still probably not good enough given how many other transfer manage to eradicate this nasty completely. There are no major film artefacts present.

    Several subtitles are available. I switched the English flavour on for the entire duration of the film while listening to the director's commentary and found them most pleasing with little omission or abridgement.

     This is a dual layered disc with RSDL formatting. The layer change occurs at 71:06, and is positioned during the scene where Bridget is locked up in the Thai prison. On both PowerDVD and my Denon 3910 the change is invisible.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are four audio tracks available. Three are Dolby Digital 5.1 efforts in English, Italian and Spanish. There is also a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded English Commentary track. I listened to both English tracks in total and sampled the others briefly to verify their presence. This is certainly not a 5.1 track to demo your speaker system to the envious neighbours with, but it is still a lot of fun and quite engaging.

    Dialogue is crisp and clear with no problems evident with audio sync or understanding any of the characters. The narration by Renee Zellweger is clear and dynamic in its presentation.

    The musical score is quite engaging. Quirky at times, poignant at others, it captures the spirit of Bridget Jones perfectly. The songs used throughout run the gamut of contemporary music, though perhaps not as contemporary or as recognisable as the original film. We have offerings from Joss Stone with Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin' on Me?), Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head, 10cc's I'm Not in Love, Robbie Williams Misunderstood, and Jamie Cullum's Everlasting Love.

    As mentioned, this is not the sort of soundtrack that will be used to break in your rear speakers, with only minimal surround use. The rear channels are mostly  reserved for streetscape sounds and the like. The subwoofer is nicely integrated into the soundstage providing some nice bottom end to the musical score.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    If the premise of the film didn't convince you, the execution and content of the extras certainly will. This is a disc aimed fair and square at a female audience.

Main Menu Introduction

Main Menu Audio

Featurette - A Smooth Guide To Exotic Thailand

    The most contrived and artificial part of the film provides probably the most interesting of all the featurettes. This is a 4:28 look at the challenges faced by the film crew while filming on location in Thailand.

Featurette - The Big Fight

    Apparently it is a condition that all Bridget Jones films have to have a fight scene between Cleaver and Darcy. This is a 4:54 behind the scenes look at the rather silly brawl between the two men where they end up in the fountain. Pretty dull really.

Quiz - Who's Your Man!

    An easy indication that this disc is aimed fair and square at the fairer sex. This quiz can be played in two ways. Select it from the extras menu and you get presented with the couple of dozen or so multiple choice questions all at once. You then get an indication of whether Darcy or Cleaver is the type of man for you. Alternatively you are able to select the quiz before playing the film and then at key spots throughout, the film will pause and ask the same set of questions. A great way to completely ruin a film in my opinion, but for a bunch of females watching this in a group it might just be the tonic for a good night.

Audio Commentary - Beeban Kidron (Director)

    This is not a particularly enlightening or entertaining commentary track. The director is infatuated with not only how good her film is, but how good looking the stars are too. This over-the-top self-congratulatory style wears very thin very quickly.

Featurette - The Mini-Break To Austria

    Another featurette dedicated to looking at the on-location filming. This time it was in the Alps in Austria. Runs for 3:58 and of course there is plenty of snow.

Deleted Scenes

    Four deleted scenes, including one which was originally intended to be the film's opening sequence (Renoir Cinema). The four scenes run for between 1:23 and the lengthy Christening scene at 7:31. All come with an introduction by the director explaining why they were cut.

Featurette - Mark And Bridget: Forever?

    Another brief featurette that explores the relationship between Mark Darcy and Bridget. Contains interviews with Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth and the director. Runs for 5:25.

Featurette - Bridget Jones Interviews Colin Firth

    This is one of the better extras. After filming one day, Renée Zellweger stayed in character while Colin Firth packed away Mark Darcy and became Colin Firth again (truth be told there doesn't appear to be much difference!). Bridget then interviews Colin for her Sit Up Britain television show and seems intently focused on discussing the wet shirt scene from Pride and Prejudice, much to Firth's bewilderment. Runs for 4:57.

Featurette - Lonely London

    A quick look at the tiny bit of CGI that was used in the film. The wide shot of London with all the happy couples in the windows was computer generated and this brief featurette really doesn't shed too much light on how it was done. Runs for just 3:10.

Trailer

    Trailers for Wimbledon (0:51) and Meet The Fockers (1:27).

    The Region 4 disc misses out on;

• Nothing

The Region 1 disc misses out on;

• Thailand and Austria featurettes

Either the region 4 or the region 2 is the version of choice.

    Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason is a poor sequel to the hit 2001 Bridget Jones's Diary. It packs a few laughs, but simply borrows too much from its hilarious predecessor to be deemed even remotely original. It really is a waste of a fine cast.

    The video quality is only average, appearing a little grainy and mildly pixelated on occasions.

    The audio is excellent, while the extras are plentiful, though aimed fair and square at the fairer sex.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall