I wish I could say something kind about Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, but I can't. It's an incoherent mess.

The Washington Post reviewer Michael ­O'Sullivan perfectly described this charmless comedy: "Imagine an R-rated version of the comic strip 'Cathy'-an unoriginal, repetitive collection of jokes about irrational sexual jealousy; obsessive, if futile, dieting; the tribulations of the modern office; and the fashion faux pas of the plus-size working gal, all of which is ­sprinkled with ­liberal references to sex, drugs, alcohol, ­cigarettes and the f-word."

In the first Bridget Jones movie, plump ­Londoner Bridget (Renee Zellweger) was endearing as she looked for love but doubted whether she could ever find it; she was clumsy but not pathetic, and unintentionally rude but not ­stupidly coarse. This sequel gives her more poundage and thrusts her into painfully ­embarrassing situations that make you want to turn your head rather than watch.

As the movie careens from one improbable bit of slapstick to another, it never bothers to show what Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) sees in Bridget or what they do together, except go to bed. Neither an improbable turn in a clean and friendly Thai prison nor a fistfight between Darcy and a cad played by Hugh Grant (inserted for no better reason than that it worked in the first movie) can save this ­horrendous film.