If you've ever wondered what happens to celluloid couples after they walk off into the sunset, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason explores that question and produces this answer: they walk into another sunset. What else, after all, can they do?

To be literal about it, there was no sunset before the closing credits to the first Bridget Jones. There was, however, a swirling snowfall as Bridget (Renee Zellweger), on tiptoe in track shoes and zebra-striped undies, kissed Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), who tenderly enfolded her into his coat. It was that most romantic of moments, when the sincerity of one finally and utterly melts the reserve of the other, when two notably different people become each other's complements. It was, despite the smarmy Van Morrison on the soundtrack, a satisfying ending.

But to paraphrase another Jones, Samantha from "Sex and the City," knowing too much about someone or something spoils the fantasy. In the Bridget Jones sequel, we become unpleasantly familiar with the people at work behind the scenes, whose transparent decisions-to focus on Bridget's clumsiness and cleavage, avoiding more complicated matters-spoil my fantasy that the near-perfect romantic comedy Bridget Jones's Diary was more than a lucky accident.

Seeming to have realized that they couldn't produce exactly the same story twice, the filmmakers have borrowed every major element of the first for the second but enlarged the backdrop. Suddenly, "Sit-Up Britain," the TV show that took Bridget on as a reporter in the first film, is no longer part of a humble operation producing segments on local fire stations, but of a major broadcasting company with a budget for skydiving and five-star hotels in Thailand.

Yes, Bridget goes to Thailand after quarreling with Mark, who's intermittently warmly devoted and "the most dreadful cold fish." She travels with former boss and lover Daniel Cleaver, who's now, inexplicably, hosting a travel show ("The Smooth Guide-making culture bearable") to which she's recruited. Daniel (Hugh Grant) tries to re-seduce her by demonstrating knowledge not pertaining to sex. ("And you thought all I knew about Thailand was pussies and Ping-Pong balls.")

It's amply clear to the audience that a woman who worries about her "wobbly bits" doesn't belong for even five minutes with a man who says he likes her because "you make me laugh-at you, not with you, of course." When Bridget gets arrested at the airport for (unwittingly) carrying a stash of cocaine, Daniel disappears into the crowd, leaving her to her fate and-ta-da!-rescue by Mark Darcy (who is, let's not forget, a human rights lawyer). Thus-after a brief languishing in jail where Bridget gets chummy with several dozen Thai girls and leads them in a pidgin chorus of "Like a Virgin"-the happy couple is reunited.

Zellweger's charm, it must be said, continues undiminished. Nonetheless, The Edge of Reason suffers from a rambling, overblown plot and characters who've become caricatures. Teased by a skillfully edited trailer, I'd been looking forward to something "very naughty indeed"-but this sequel, sadly, was just bad.