Bridget Jones's Baby
Universal Pictures | Release Date: September 16, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
14
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Village VoiceSerena DonadoniSep 13, 2016
As much as this latest installment draws on affection for the snappy first film, it's the differences that make Bridget Jones's Baby the warmest and most satisfying of the series. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyKevin P. SullivanSep 5, 2016
The script contains some genuinely uproarious laughs and is sharper than it needs to be, even if some of the jokes feel as old as Bridget’s condoms. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaSep 15, 2016
The film could merely coast on the charms of its three stars, but it's smarter and brighter than you'd expect. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshSep 15, 2016
Zellweger plays Bridget just as charmingly as she always has -- flawed but endearing; just right in her own idiosyncratic way. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeSep 13, 2016
I’ve never liked Renée Zellweger more as a warmer and wiser Bridget Jones – but still capable of making a total prat of herself. Read full review
80
Total FilmJane CrowtherSep 5, 2016
A warm, witty and welcome return – intelligently evolved and an absolute hoot. As Bridget would say: ‘v.good’. Read full review
80
EmpireTerri WhiteSep 5, 2016
Though the story occasionally stretches credibility, the warmth and wit so reminiscent of the original Bridget Jones's Diary propels you along, being due in large part to the return of one woman: director Sharon Maguire. You feel her filthy, funny thumbprints pressed on almost every scene. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Julia CooperSep 15, 2016
So despite the conventionalism of the film’s final minutes, I’d like to raise a glass of Chardonnay and toast Bridget Jones’s Baby on its (mostly) hilarious, and long-anticipated, homecoming. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerMolly EichelSep 15, 2016
The movie's greatest misstep - other than Dempsey's boring romantic foil - is that, at one point, Bridget flashes back to events from the first movie. It's a reminder of how much fun the first film was, and it'll make you want to run out and watch that rather than the finish the one you bought a ticket for. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 15, 2016
Bridget Jones’s Baby exceeds expectations and, as a result, makes us willing to forgive the delay in bringing the character back to theaters. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittSep 15, 2016
While it unabashedly leans into its chick-flick nature, returning director Sharon Maguire — who helmed 2001’s franchise-starter "Bridget Jones’s Diary" — manages to craft the strongest and funniest film of the series. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 15, 2016
Sounds godawful in title and concept — but which in execution is a fizzy delight. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaSep 15, 2016
There is a welcome sense of familiarity in Bridget Jones's Baby — but also of the fresh and au courant. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesStephanie HayesSep 15, 2016
There's a funny, healthy element of slapstick at play, as with all Bridget movies. A doctor played dryly by Emma Thompson is a biting, welcome addition. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldSep 14, 2016
The whole endeavor is so relentlessly lovable, like Bridget herself, that I defy anyone to not enjoy themselves. Read full review
75
TheWrapJason SolomonsSep 8, 2016
She’s a woman gamely surviving the pitfalls and pratfalls of her own desperation and insecurities, and Zellweger creates a hugely sympathetic character. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 21, 2016
Although it’s patchy and gives off an air of trying too hard, the movie is surprisingly funny. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredRobert Yaniz Jr.Sep 19, 2016
Bridget Jones’s Baby effortlessly reminds audiences why this character and her world were so compelling in the original film. Read full review
70
New York Daily NewsAriel ScottiSep 8, 2016
This somewhat predictable and trend-obsessed comedy about what happens when a woman of a certain age ends up expecting, and unsure of the parentage, is pregnant with comedy gold. Read full review
67
ConsequenceAllison ShoemakerSep 15, 2016
The most surprising thing about Bridget Jones’s Baby has nothing to do with the perennial singleton’s offspring or the tropes of romantic comedies. What’s surprising is that, despite all the contrivances and stale conventions, this movie’s not half bad, and occasionally better than that. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesSep 14, 2016
Is this latest outing as bold or bracing or funny as the original film? Certainly not. We’re well settled into our seats now, but there’s some comfort in how the cushion already knows a body’s grooves. Read full review
67
The PlaylistWill AshtonSep 14, 2016
Bridget Jones’s Baby is not a game-changer, but that’s not what it sets out to be. It’s a goodnatured, accessible, persistently endearing matinee, and sometimes it’s nice to be won over by simple sincerity and commercial likeability. Read full review
63
New York PostSara StewartSep 15, 2016
On one hand, third installment is series of hilarious meditations on trials of being middle-aged woman, co-written by feminist goddess Emma Thompson, who gives self all best lines as deadpan OB-GYN. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreSep 14, 2016
Zellweger shows flashes of her Oscar winning talent and is certainly not past her sell-by date, even if she’s tampered entirely too much with the packaging. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 15, 2016
Delivers a rare perfect ending to a perfectly likeable trilogy. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 5, 2016
What sealed the deal for me – by a whisker – was the gigantic physical comedy that Dempsey, Zellweger and Firth uncorked as they try to get through the hospital revolving door as Bridget is about to give birth, the traditional romcom rush to the airport having been re-invented for this maternal drama. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 5, 2016
It's a comeback you root for, then, even while it’s wobbling and occasionally falling in the mud. But goodwill gets it home. Read full review
60
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 5, 2016
In its own deja vu way, Bridget Jones Baby is intermittently entertaining, mainly thanks to Zellweger’s performance. Read full review
60
VarietyCatherine BraySep 5, 2016
Despite Zellweger’s appealingly warm, vulnerable performance, the film itself is a mixed bag. Read full review
58
The Film StageConor O'DonnellSep 16, 2016
In spite of its slightly excessive runtime and a handful of millennial-pandering beats, Bridget Jones’s Baby is brought to term by the buckets of undeniable charm and charisma present in its performances. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerSep 14, 2016
In other words, 12 years have elapsed since the last Bridget Jones movie. A skinnier, more put-together Bridget isn’t necessarily a more interesting character; she’s a little more "Sex And The City" this time out, however incrementally. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 15, 2016
Even considering its optimistic, open-ended conclusion, Bridget Jones’s Baby feels like an affectionate, slightly overdue goodbye to characters whose time has inevitably passed. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternSep 15, 2016
Of all the performances in a patchy production, only one achieves perfection. We get to see it through the modern medical miracle of ultrasound. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoSep 15, 2016
The film is sprinkled with “f” bombs, which fails to disguise that the enterprise is based on a surprisingly dated notion of what’s racy. Also, you simply may not find Bridget quite as adorable as the filmmaker’s clearly believe her to be. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen HoldenSep 14, 2016
Despite an abundance of mostly tepid jokes that keeps the comedic tone at a quiet simmer, Bridget Jones’s Baby doesn’t jell. Ms. Zellweger floats through the picture, charming but strangely detached from her suitors. Read full review
50
IndieWire Demetrios MatheouSep 5, 2016
Once again excelling, Zellweger has much to do with the safe transition of this new Bridget, maintaining all the old quirks and sweetness, but in a believably more mature shell. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinSep 5, 2016
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. Read full review
40
SlateDana StevensSep 15, 2016
Still, the movie’s mores can feel cluelessly retro as the ever-dithering Bridget lurches between one man and another. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 15, 2016
“Baby” is to Helen Fielding’s original 1996 novel and its 2001 movie adaptation what “Sex and the City 2” was to the HBO series — a cause not for celebration but overdue burial. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 14, 2016
From start to finish, this film seems strangely out of touch, never more so than when it tries to come across as enlightened. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineEric HendersonSep 15, 2016
The Pinkberry solipsism of this particular franchise all but requires our heroine persist as a lovelorn martyr for her audience’s benefit. Read full review
20
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 19, 2016
Maguire has the nerve to give her heroine a big speech on the “integrity” of proper journalism — this after Bridget Jones’s Baby has made fun of foreigners’ names, and arranged for her to put the wrong Asian guest in front of the cameras. (Do all Asians look alike to her? Is that the joke?) So reliably does she embarrass herself at every public event that the film, trudging by on automatic, becomes an embarrassment, too. Read full review
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