Paddington 2

Directed By: Paul KingWritten By: Paul King and Simon Farnaby (based on Paddington Bear created by Michael Bond)Starring: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Brendan Gleeson, Hugh Grant

Rare is the film that has viewers

genuinely leave the cinema a better, happier person than they were going in. Rarer still is the sequel that achieves those same giddy, jump-for-joy heights. All things considered, Paddington 2 must be one of the best sequels of this millennium, and perhaps one of the best of the family genre in all, giving even Pixar’s instant classic Toy Story 2 a run for its money.

Writer/director Paul King’s second encounter with Michael Bond’s long cherished Peruvian-turned-British anthropomorphic bear is every part the rousing, surprising success of the first, with King once again blending kinetic, whip-crack comedy with an irresistible goodwill— a winning formula guaranteed to plaster a smile on the face of anyone who comes into contact with the effortlessly charming Paddington 2.

The goodwill comes on too thick in the early passages it must be said. The first twenty minutes of the film are so bloated with gosh darn sugary cutesiness that they would make a fitting substitute for our titular bear’s precious marmalade, should he find himself running low of supplies. But once it’s done its initial round of Windsor Gardens (reinitiating us with the community’s multi-cultural composition) and settles into its story, Paddington 2 is as endearing, heart-warming, and simply entertaining a film as you’re likely to have seen in 2017.

A snappy prologue narrated by Paddington himself catches us up on all that’s happened with his adoptive family, the Browns, since we last saw them. Patriarch Henry (Hugh Bonneville) is amidst a mid-life crisis after being passed up for a promotion; matriarch Mary (Sally Hawkins) is longing for an adventure, and as such plans to swim the English Channel; eldest child Judy (Madeleine Harris) is having boy trouble; and youngest Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) is straining to reconcile his passion for trains with the ever-dire need to be cool.

As for our eponymous hero (voiced by Ben Whishaw), he’s searching high and low for a suitable gift to present his aunt Lucy for her 100^th birthday, also a marmalade loving Peruvian bear, who plucked a drowning Paddington from a river when he was just a cub, and passed on her chance to visit England in order to raise him.

An extremely rare, antique pop-up book of London seems to be ideal then, but it’s too expensive, so Paddington embarks on a job hunt to raise the funds, trying his paw firstly at hairdressing, before deferring to window cleaning, both ventures paving the way for Mr King to once again tap into those Keaton-esque stylings that were so integral to the first film’s comedic repertoire. It goes without saying that even when partaking in the most mundane of jobs, Paddington somehow finds himself tethered to a ceiling fan, dangling precariously from a high-rise building, and aggravating legal officials—all achieved with great earnest sunniness, as only Paddington can.

Hugh Grant subs in for Nicole Kidman as the dastardly antagonist, a delectably vain former megastar of the stage and screen (but who now stars chiefly in dog food commercials), who fancies himself something of a thespian’s chameleon, honing an array of ultra-hokey personas in order to heist that very same pop-up book Paddington is chasing by honest means— a heist for which our hero unjustly takes the wrap and is sent to prison for.

Phoenix Buchanan is the villain’s name, and Grant plays him with a delightful campy abandon, a Gilderoy Lockheart type, so enthrallingly enamoured of himself that we too can’t help but love him, even as we cheer for his downfall. It’s also one of the best performances of Hugh Grant’s career, perhaps mocking his own perceived lack of range as Buchanan sifts through his ludicrous catalogue of characters. Such is the underlining goodwill of Paddington 2, even the dastardly ones are uproarious family fun.

It’s a trend which continues inside the prison. Whilst the Browns toil to clear his name, Paddington himself goes about befriending his seemingly belligerent cellmates, conquering them, much as he does us, with his simple but triumphant do-good philosophies. “If you’re kind and polite, the world will be right” Paddington reiterates throughout his misadventure, a simple but elegant mantra, the transformative power of which is no better illustrated than it is in Knuckles McGinty (Brendan Gleeson), the menacing, short-fused, hard as stone prison chef who makes a point of doing “nothin’ for no one for nothin’”, but who’s suddenly reformed to a cheery, mushy humanitarian by Paddington’s sheer kindness and willingness to give others a chance.

And the prison itself isn’t immune to the film’s whimsical charms, the dank lock-up morphing into a Wes Anderson inflected visual splendour, where the prisoners wear pink jumpsuits (also the inadvertent work of Paddington) and which houses a series of whirling, visual fantasias, such as a montage in which all manner of ornate cakes and crockery suddenly erect throughout the prison like the landmarks in that coveted pop-up book, and when a cuckoo clock on the warden’s desk opens up to reveal a miniaturised version of the prison, inhabited by miniature prisoners.

The touchstone of King’s distinct visual flair has to be an early fantasy sequence however, in which Paddington projects himself and Aunt Lucy into the aforementioned pop-up book, the two strolling amongst its cardboard figures and landmarks, jaws agape, like children at an amusement park.

King’s tightest of airtight screenplays (cowritten with Simon Farnaby)— swollen with laugh-out-loud gags and balletically leaping from action set-piece, to comic set-piece, to moments of sheer, joyous tenderness— merely seals the film’s universal appeal, all of which is knitted together by that indominable, underpinning goodness.

“If you’re kind a polite, the world will be right”; it’s a romantic thought, and one we’d all no-doubt like to believe. As it happens, it’s a sunny disposition which also makes for effective moviemaking. I’m a grouch when it comes to sentiment onscreen, by Paddington 2 is so funny and so sincere, that it melted my heart with ease.

But don’t just take my word for it. If you’re still undecided on whether to fork out the funds to see Paddington 2, just check your pulse. If you have one, you should.

Rating:

3.75/4