Going To See Bridget Jones's Baby...

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Going to see Bridget Jones's Baby was like accidentally stumbling into a fucking hen-night. Me and my friend religiously go to the cinema every single Tuesday and I refuse to watch the same film more than once a year. So this was literally the only thing that was available for us to see at that time. Plus it was getting good reviews so sod it, I figured it was worth a shot. But fuck me.. as we opened the door to the cinema, you could see the oestrogen flooding out like blood from the elevator in The fucking Shining. Women were dressed as devils, had banners around themselves, and at least one middle-aged gang looked like the Playboy Bunnies had escaped from a particularly rough session at the vivisection clinic.

It's usually dead at this time, and on this day too, but here we found ourselves having to queue for bloody ages. We were the only blokes in this rowdy crowd of over-excited females to the point that I was feeling out of place for not being a member of the fucking Chippendales. Not that I'm suggesting by the way that women shouldn't be allowed to go out and have a good time, or that whenever more than three women enjoy a laugh together it's like a pre-wedding piss up, it's just, in this case, it absolutely was. Imagine the gangs that wander up and down Blackpool whilst wearing cowboy hats, those pants with the fake arse in them, and sucking a cock shaped lollypop, and that's basically what it was like.

As a result, pretty much the entire screen had sold out by the time we eventually got to buy our tickets with only the shitty seats left. And by 'shitty seats', I mean the ones that are right at the very front in which watching any film that's over two hours long would leave you in need of a neck brace and at risk of blacking out. I mean, who the fuck are those seats even for? Presumably people who hate movies but love leg room. Anyway, we took them because I couldn't be arsed waiting for the next film to start and again I have my 'watch a film only once a year' rule being reinforced by my pathological sense of stubbornness. Still.. it was a big screen and I really wasn't expecting the seats to be as close as they were, because we were stupidly close. Imagine that that bit in Videodrome where James Woods starts to go mad and sticks his face through the TV screen.. imagine that but way fucking bigger and that's what it was like.

Then the film began, the Universal Studios theme blasted out, and the biggest fucking image of the Earth I've ever seen suddenly appeared a few feet in front of me. Or to quote my friend, “fuck me, it's life-sized”. Seriously, Colin Firth enters the film in a wide-shot and he was so big I forgot I was watching Bridget Jones's Baby and thought I was seeing an overly British remake of God-fucking-Zilla. Throughout the entire film, the entire packed audience were also vocalising their every thought with a series of coo's and ah's and hollers like it was a live stage-version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Even the smallest hint of a joke and the crowd were in hysterics to the point that I wanted to start a drinking game in which you have to down a shot every time somebody cackled. Well, I wanted to, until I realised that if I did I'd have died of alcohol poisoning before the opening fucking titles.

I should also say too that as a result of all of this, this was one of the most fun screenings that I've been to in a long time. If you were to even cough during a film I was arsed about then I'd be looking for the fire axe to take you down like it was fucking Purge night. But I figured that this film was more their deal than mine. I'd seen the first movie when it first came out when I was about thirteen and I thought it was okay. But I barely remembered anything about it beyond Bridget Jones's big knickers and a fight between two of the most terribly British people I've ever seen. One of which has since proven that he was clearly holding back having massacred an entire church congregation in Kingsman: The Secret Service. But ignoring the allegedly shit sequel, these people had all been waiting since 2001 for a decent Bridget Jones movie. If they wanted to celebrate and enjoy it like a gang on their way to the night-bus then who was I to give a shit? Plus at the very least, their constant noise helped take my mind off the agony in my neck as each time two characters were conversing at either side of the screen it was like watching a game of tennis that was being played in the fucking sky.

But atmosphere aside, was the film actually any good? I mean.. it was okay, I thought. I'd be lying if I said there weren't aspects that I hated, but I'd by lying if I said I didn't laugh a fair bit. A moment in which Firth misunderstands a photographers instructions to “give her a kiss on her forehead” got the first smile out of me. By the time Bridget is being dragged to hospital by two men who have essentially turned her into a Chuckle Brothers sketch, I'll admit I was laughing out loud. Although if you're going to go the slapstick route, it seemed a shame not to have both men run either side of a lamppost. Probably not the safest idea with a pregnant woman but considering how 'into it' these fans were, I seriously doubt Bridget Jones's Comedy Miscarriage would have sold less tickets.

And speaking of alternate titles, I'm pretty sure that somebody missed a trick by not calling this movie Bridget Jones's Bastard. Her baby essentially doesn't know who its Dad is after Jones has comically banged two blokes around the time of its conception. I say comically because that's how it's all played out, but really she acted like a total fucking bitch if you ask me. She told both guys that they were the Dad and then let them both go a few days of enjoying it and getting used to the idea before breaking both their hearts. In a world in which people trap distant partners with a pre-meditated pregnancy, I couldn't help but be uncomfortable with the way this aspect essentially played out either. “I wonder if this might have happened at some point to me?” I type into my blog so you can see why this might have annoyed me without me having to actually admit anything!

Considering the entire movie revolves around the mystery of who the actual Dad might be too, it's pretty fucking obvious who it's going to be. You know the guy you thought it was? Yeah? Well it's him.. obviously. I don't know if this is a spoiler, but at the end of the movie Bridget ends up enjoying what I'll ambiguously refer to as a 'special day' with the actual father of the baby, with the other suitor stood nearby holding it. I think this was meant to be a moment of suspense as we wonder if the one with the kid is the guy who turned out to be the Dad. But this just seemed even weirder to me. Like she'd said to him, “Hey, you know the kid that you were excited about and spent nine months hoping was yours before having your dreams stamped all over? Could you do us a favour and have a lovely day looking after him for me?” I mean, what the fuck? Surely that's like winning Bullseye and then asking the loser to drag your speedboat home for you!

Oh, and for the record, I don't really like Patrick Dempsey either. He looks like Rob Lowe jumped into that teleporter from The Fly but just as Hugh Jackman was about to zap himself somewhere and the two got fused together. I know that that probably sounds good-looking to some people, but it's more like he got the bad bits of both and lost all of the charisma in the process. I mean, Rob Lowe is charismatic enough for none of us to care any more about how he's basically a sex offender, and yet I'm willing to hate Dempsey for being a sex offender without any evidence whatsoever. I suppose it's a plus of the film that neither men are shown to be either the overly good or the bad guy. Although Firth does occasionally come across like a dick until you realise that some bitch told him that she was pregnant with his kid before retracting it and playing happy families with a billionaire that she's just met.

Did I mention that Dempsey's character was a billionaire? Oh, well, he is. And Jones just happened to bump into him at a festival. Because that's just how life works. I've been to a few festivals and the only thing that landed in my life was a weighty turd inside a condom that somebody had flicked into our campsite. But no... the message here is that if you get yourself knocked up then before you know it, a billionaire and a successful lawyer will be fighting for you heart with such strong passive aggressiveness that you'll start to worry that looks can actually kill. Or at least that's what I was worrying, but don't forget I was on the very front row where Colin Firth's pupils were so large and dark that the abyss started to stare right back into me.

But let's not forget that I did laugh, I did like Colin Firth, and the experience of being in that cinema with that crowd was an absolute treat. When the baby did make its appearance in the movie with its stupid little face and its still-slimy fanny-batter shine, the woman next to me coo'ed and then coo'ed again. At first I thought it was because she thought the baby was cute but retrospectively she might have simply been transforming into a disabled fucking dove. My only regret was not having had business cards printed up with my name on so that I could hand them out at the end to a packed screen of broody women. Could I recommend this film to anybody that didn't already have a vested interest in the franchise? Probably not. It killed a couple of hours, but like visiting my Nan, I probably won't go out of my way to see it again. However if the movie is still showing at the cinema, then I absolutely recommend that you go to that for the simple experience of seeing how fucking punch-drunk and over-excited women get when Hollywood remembers they exist and bothers to make them the target audience for a change. Thanks for reading, motherfuckers, and see you next time.