Not that King sticks with real-world politics for long. Curry (Peter Capaldi) holds out against Paddington’s benevolence, and he’s quite the explicit caricature of an anti-immigration Brexit voter.Īlso Read: Weinstein Co Talking to 22 Buyers, $300 Million Expected Price, Bob Weinstein Must Exit But adults may well shed a tear at the film’s sincere celebration of selflessness and community. Before he is arrested, the film establishes that his neighbors (played by Sanjeev Bhaskar, Jessica Hynes, Ben Miller and others) would be as lost without his small acts of kindness as the townsfolk in “It’s a Wonderful Life” would be without James Stewart’s George Bailey.Ĭhildren will rightly chortle at Paddington’s clumsiness: when he works as a hairdresser and as a window cleaner, his elaborate mishaps are worthy of Laurel and Hardy. Paddington is presented as the furry offspring of Amélie and Forrest Gump, someone so habitually decent that he makes the world a better place simply by being in it. It’s this unwavering courtesy which gives the film its central theme.
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Watch Video: 'Paddington' Review: A Charming Bear Overcomes the Odds, and So Does His Movie Behind bars, meanwhile, Paddington has to win over a fearsome fellow inmate, Knuckles McGinty (Brendan Gleeson), with his marmalade sandwiches and his naive politeness. One strand puts Paddington’s adoptive family, the Browns (Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, et al), on the trail of Buchanan, a master of disguise who is spotted around London in a tramp’s rags, a nun’s habit and a suit of armour. And while that may sound like cruel and unusual punishment, the screenplay provides a witty reason for the judge’s harshness.įrom here on, King’s perfectly paced, joke-filled caper cuts back and forth between two parallel plots. Gruber (Jim Broadbent).Īlas, thanks to a bad case of mistaken identity, it is Paddington who is led away in handcuffs (or rather, paw-cuffs), and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Buchanan dreams of staging a one-man show in the West End, and his complicated fund-raising plans - which would have been at home in an Ealing comedy - involve stealing a vintage pop-up book from the antique shop owned by Paddington’s friend Mr. Its antagonist is a vain, past-it thespian, Phoenix Buchanan, played with delightfully self-parodying foppishness by Hugh Grant. Fortunately, “Paddington 2” is less likely to give young viewers nightmares.Īlso Read: Michael Bond, Creator of Paddington Bear, Dies at 91 She seemed to have strutted in from a different film altogether.
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And yet he was up against a murderous taxidermist (Nicole Kidman), who was intent on putting his skin on display in a museum. Endearingly voiced by Ben Whishaw and exquisitely computer-generated, he was a mild-mannered, duffle-coated innocent, who had no superpowers or special abilities except his withering hard stare. The first film introduced an ursine hero who was pretty close to the one in Bond’s books. One obvious way that it improves on its predecessor is in its choice of villain. (The film has just opened in the United Kingdom last October the North American rights were picked up by Warner Bros.
Once again directed by Paul King, and co-written by King and Simon Farnaby, “Paddington 2” is a sure-footed, sweet-natured family comedy which isn’t set at Christmas, but which glows with so much warmth and fun that it might well be a staple of festive television for years to come. It turned out, though, that he knew what he was doing: “Paddington” was a beloved hit in 2015, and the superior sequel is bound to be even more lucrative.
Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear stories are charmingly small in scale, so it was quite a gamble when David Heyman, the producer of the “Harry Potter” series, decided that they should be the basis of an action-packed, megabudget franchise.
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