Tags: Beeban Kidron | Celia Imrie | Colin Firth | Hugh Grant | James Faulkner | Renee Zellweger

So many sequels, so little time. Should you spend some of that time with this sequel to the popular and funny Bridget Jones' Diary? If you have a taste for the light and frothy, certainly.

If we were discussing the book, Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason (check out the Widescreen Edition), I would say "no" - there are far better books (and better sequels) out there.

This is that rare case where the second book was rushed out to capitalise on the wild popularity of the first, and disappointingly so - while this movie, not so rushed, is only casually based on, and certainly much better than the book.

Colin Firth has a much greater presence in this movie than the first - after all, he (as "Mark Darcy") and Bridget have a real relationship as the movie opens. Of course they... uhmm... "mess" it up with misunderstandings, jealousies, and other very funny mishaps.

I am not a huge fan of humour based on one character's running the continuum from private embarrassment to public humiliation; yet Bridget, who constantly manages to embarrass herself and others in public, is such a good sport and so charming as Everygirl, that we laugh or groan with her in recognition of those moments in ourselves, and not at her. There are some great laughs in this movie.

Some of them come with Hugh Grant, who seems to have lost the weight that Renee Zellweger gained. Too thin but still devilishly attractive, Hugh's rakish character Daniel Cleaver hangs around to take advantage of the misunderstandings between Bridget and Mark Darcy - even if he has to "hang around" Thailand to do it. Cad that he is, when Bridget really becomes a damsel in distress, he evaporates into thin air.

That's all right. We know there will be some rough times in between, but surely Mark Darcy, human rights lawyer, will come cantering in on a white horse to save Bridget from a Thai prison, right? Not quite. But with a few comic kinks, close enough.