Bridget Jones's Baby reviews roundup: Your favourite hapless heroine is back and she's as lovable as ever

Last year, Colin Firth told us that after umming and ahhing over the idea of making a Bridget Jones threequel, the cast were finally “ready for that moment” and now, here we are: Bridget is back and, by most accounts, she’s as lovable as ever.

Twelve years after our favourite hapless heroine headed off into the metaphorical sunset to live happily ever after with Mark Darcy in sequel The Edge of Reason, she returns for Bridget Jones’s Baby with, you guessed it, a baby on the way. Of course, this is Bridget, so all is not quite as simple as it seems, with Patrick Dempsey’s dashing new love interest Jack thrown into the mix to spice things up and a cameo appearance from Ed Sheeran.

Bridget Jones’s Baby doesn’t arrive in UK cinemas until 16 September but the first reviews have already come flooding in. Here’s the predominantly three-star picture emerging from the critics about what fans have to look forward to and why they shouldn’t expect too much:

“Renee Zellweger again gives a thoroughly winning comic performance and shows the steeliness which made her such an appealing character in the first place […] an improvement on The Edge of Reason. Bridget hasn’t lost her neurotic charm in the slightest.”

“Kooking up a facial storm right from the legitimately hilarious opening credits, Zellweger feels back in charge of the character again. It's a comeback you root for, even while it’s wobbling and occasionally falling in the mud.”

The performances are all terrific […] if she is let down at all by the writers, it is perhaps that she hasn’t grown quite enough with the times. This is, on the whole, a worthy completion of the trilogy –assuming it is to stay a trilogy, and that we are not likely to assemble again one day for Bridget Jones’s Dentures.”

“This is a better Bridget than the last movie because it doesn’t feel the need to indulge shark-jumping setpieces like zipping off to Thailand […] the best way to end what can only can be described as the Bridget Jones franchise: something resembling a likeable, good-natured one-off TV holiday special.”

“Even if the machinations of the plot are highly unlikely and predictable, like the best British comedy, there are moments that make you cringe as well as laugh out loud.”

“There are crisply folded lines, and pleasingly peppery performances from the supporting cast especially, but where its beating heart should be there is a splinter of ice, the sense that no one involved is really doing this for that much love.”

“Zellweger is unlikely to repeat the Academy Award nomination she justly received for the comic masterclass she gave in the first film, but she slips back into the role as comfortably as her old penguin pyjamas. Alas, despite her appealingly warm, vulnerable performance, the film itself is a mixed bag ”

“Though the story occasionally stretches credibility, the warmth and wit so reminiscent of the original propels you along, being due in large part to the return of one woman: director Sharon Maguire.”