Renée Zellweger looks as if she’s thinking of something else in weird fourquel that sees our heroine choosing between new suitors Leo Woodall and Chiwetel Ejiofor

The last Bridget Jones film – the second sequel, about Bridget having a baby – executed the daring athletic leap of jumping the shark and then jumping back. There were some tired novelties but, by virtue of its conscientiously maintained stream of likable gags, it leapt back into our hearts and BJ3 seemed a decent way to sign off the franchise and remember Helen Fielding’s inspired creation. But though I was willing myself to enjoy this fourth film, about the heroine’s adventure with a younger man, the Bridget Jones series has frankly run out of steam.

This is a fourquel in the same unhappy tradition as Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. The jokes have been dialled down to accommodate a contrived and unconvincingly mature “weepie” component but the film becomes sad in the wrong way. The actors are mostly going through the motions, there is so little chemistry between each of the two lead pairings they resemble a panda being forced to mate with a flamingo, and Renée Zellweger’s performance is starting to look eccentric.