WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - "Bridget Jones's Diary " was a popular, if lightweight entertainment that made fans of moviegoers and critics alike, largely for its endearing star turn by a plumped-up Renee Zellweger as the clumsy, lovelorn British singleton.

Director Beeban Kidron and a team of imagination-challenged writers now serve up a sequel, "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason," which largely ignores novelist Helen Fielding's tales and simply duplicates many of the situations and a lot of the jokes of the first movie.

Some may find this to be good news, but unless you are an unabashed Bridget fan, you will probably find much of this retread to be tired and repetitive, squandering whatever residual affection you had for this mousy career girl.

"Another year, another diary," announces Bridget, which all too accurately sums up the ambitions of the filmmakers. Although three years have passed in real time, it is only six weeks since the earlier installment by Jones' calendar.

That is a month and a half of togetherness with humorless, patient, upper-class human-rights lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), which means it is time for Bridget's insecurities to kick in and sabotage her happiness. Kidron makes Bridget even more socially inept than in the first movie, bungling small talk at an important dinner for attorneys and interrupting Mark's meeting with Amnesty International with saucy declarations of love over a speaker phone.

It is hard to figure what Mark sees in Bridget, who must be wondering that, too, as she broadly jumps to the conclusion that he is having an affair with his annoyingly thin, leggy assistant Rebecca (Jacinda Barrett of "Ladder 49").

While Bridget digs herself in deeper playing the jealousy card, the movie bides its time watching her bumble through several contrived physical comedy sequences.

As a television reporter whose boss keeps giving her soft news assignments that show her lack of coordination, Bridget gamely sky-dives out a plane and lands in a pig sty. When Mark invites her to go skiing - a sport completely foreign to her - Zellweger amuses with her comic klutziness.

Hugh Grant is back, reprising his role as callous womanizer Daniel Cleaver, Bridget's former boss and one-time lover. Now bopping around the globe as the host of a surface-deep television travel show, he is improbably teamed with Bridget on a trip to Thailand.

Bridget downs some magic mushrooms, hallucinates for a few chuckles, fights off Daniel's amorous advances, then gets tossed in jail when drugs planted in her luggage are discovered by the Thai authorities. Despite the dire situation, Bridget spends her time in the hoosegow bonding with the other women, teaching them to harmonize on "Like a Virgin." (Don't ask.)

Zellweger is certainly committed to the role, packing on the pounds again, willing to look as unattractive as required, and also devouring the comic opportunities. But the writers - including Fielding and Richard Curtis ("Love, Actually") - seem content to let her flail about, not giving her much of a plot to contain her hijinks.

Grant effortlessly breezes through the movie, oozing ego without breaking a sweat, while Firth is every bit as dull as his character. Bridget's trio of catty buddies are also back, but their impact and screen time have been minimized.

Minimal seems the operative word for "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason," particularly if you measure its entertainment quotient.