'. . . God knows what the next one will be like.' –  Your correspondent, talking about the last one.

We have something of a novelty on our hands at present: it's still the case that most substantial films get what is called a day-and-date release, which means they come out simultaneously in the US, the UK, and other significant markets. (Though not always: Paddington in Peru has only just made its appearance in the US, presumably to avoid getting squished between Gladiiator and Wicked, and now finds itself in the role of counter-programming to Captain America: Brave New World, more on which later.) Big sporting events and things like that can also have an impact on dates.

Michael Morris' Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (my suggested title Bridget Jones' Menopause was ignored) has enjoyed pre-sales which, according to some sources, have exceeded those of Barbie, and the screening which I attended was certainly unusually busy by modern standards. This does not look like the latest instalment of a film franchise which is limping towards oblivion. On the other hand, though, the date of its theatrical release in the States is. . . hang on, let me check. . . yup, it's 'never'. Streaming only for this one, American friends, sorry about that.

I expect we can rationalise this by considering that back in 2001, when it all got underway, Renee Zellweger was an up-and-coming star, while these days she is practically a veteran and that bit less appealing to the hip young crowd that mainstream film-makers (and this is definitely a mainstream movie) are ineluctably drawn towards. The fact that these films understandably do better here than in the States is also a probable factor. Still, the last one made back six times its budget, which made it a success anywhere on the map, so you can understand why they're doing another one even if the release schedule is a bit eccentric.

So, we catch up again with Bridget Darcy (nee Jones), who at the start of the film is a housewife raising two children (a boy who is grave and lovable and a girl who is cute and lovable). But, and don't complain because this is in the trailer, Bridget is a widow, her husband Mr Darcy, having driven over a landmine in one of the Sudans (not a great advert for the region). Nevertheless, Colin Firth still pops up two or three times in the course of the film, although it's hard not to suspect this is just so they can put him in the trailer, too. Also making an early appearance in the film is Hugh Grant as the charming rogue Daniel Cleaver; Cleaver was dead in the previous episode but has come back to life for this one. Jim Broadbent also turns up in this opening section as Bridget's dad in a flashback; he is also regrettably dead.

Lotta dead and ex-dead guys for a rom-com, right? Well, a fair point and one we shall return to. Apropos of nothing much, Bridget decides to re-engage with life (she has presumably been just sitting around her kitchen for the past four years), getting a job, joining something called Tinder, and basically hunting for opportunities for some comic business.

Although not quite as much as you might be expecting, for this isn't exactly a rom-com in the traditional sense. There are still some opportunities for Zellweger to fall over, and generally goof around, but – and whether this is entirely a positive or not may be a question of personal taste – the film never completely loses track of the fact that it's about a widow still going through the grieving process. Obviously this gives the film a different kind of emotional heft to the previous ones, and there's inevitably a degree of tonal uncertainty as it shifts back and forth between the serious and the comic bits.

Mixed in with this, too, is a quivering dollop of what I assume is wish-fulfilment for much of the target audience, as Bridget embarks on an age-gap entanglement with a studly young biochemist (Leo Woodall) whom she cute-meets up a tree. Oh, how to be gallant at moments like this one? The film rather generously has him guess Bridget is 35 (and, to be fair, Zellweger indeed has at least one 5 in her age at the time of writing). To be fair, Zellweger is wearing well, although something seems to have happened to her eyes, meaning she now resembles Dave Bautista looking into the sunset in a spaghetti western. Wearing even better is Josette Simon, who plays her workmate – Simon hasn't done a huge amount of TV or movies since Blake's 7 finished in 1981 and I found myself trying to work out how old she must be, which was a bit distracting. Suffice to say she appears to be on the Substance.

There are a lot of faces from years gone by popping up in the course of the movie – Sally Philips, Shirley Henderson, Neil Pearson, Sarah Solemani, people of that sort of stratum – and a few newcomers as well. (Chiwetel Ejiofor does his manful best with the rather thankless role of Mature and Cerebral Hunk.) This seems to have been the kind of film where people verging on national treasure status turned up and delivered some fairly thin material just out of loyalty to the franchise. Doing more than their share of the comedic heavy lifting are Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson, who have both apparently figured out that the best way of coming out of a film like this one with your dignity intact is to write your own dialogue. This just makes me want to start campaigning to have Grant and Thompson locked up together somewhere until they've written a rom-com of their own to appear in. It would almost certainly be a lot better than a lot of stuff passing as comedies these days.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (one notes she reverts to her maiden name for the title) isn't quite as bad as all that, though. Some of the funny bits are actually quite funny, and peel my tangerines if some of the more weepy moments don't actually turn out to be heading in the general direction of being slightly moving. But it is kind of systematically sentimental, and it does feel like it's benefiting from a considerable amount of goodwill, from both many of the cast, and from its intended audience as well. It's not particularly sharp or insightful or witty, but it should satisfy people who really wanted to see some of these characters again (I should say that female critics have given it notably better scores than their male colleagues). For the rest of us there are enough good jokes and performances to keep it amiably watchable.

Also Showing. . .

. . . but banished to this subordinate slot out of consideration for Ye Editor's delicate sensibilities, Julius Onah's Captain America: Brave New World. An abrasive elderly man (Harrison Ford) with a controversial history somehow ends up as the President of the United States. Fairly quickly he reveals himself to be a strangely-coloured id-driven monster, who sets off to smash as much of the country as he can get his hands on in a frenzy of rage and hatred, while hardly anyone suspects this is all part of the revenge scheme of a tech-prodigy weirdo who has a strange influence over him. It's up to Captain America (Anthony Mackie) to sort all this out, naturally.

I am not making things up; that really is the plot. (They were going to call it New World Order but I guess you can be just too on-the-nose.) What makes it all even funnier is that the top brass at Marvel would eagerly shoot themselves rather than ever make something so trenchantly satirical; this is all a massive coincidence. As a result a mid-table Marvel movie gains unexpected traction as an accidental polemic. It's good fun as these things go, but expect everyone involved in making it to end up in Guantanamo sooner rather than later.

Awix

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