National Post (National Edition)
Against all expectations, Paddington 2 is a sublime ursine.
PADDINGTON 2 RELIES ON SOLID MOVIEMAKING TO PRODUCE SUBLIME URSINE
Paddington 2
The first Paddington movie, released three years ago, was bearable. The sequel, against all the laws of cinema, is something more. It is the sublime ursine.
How did the filmmakers do it? There are lessons aplenty for would-be purveyors of family-friendly franchises.
1. Hire good actors.
Everyone in the cast is at the top of their game. Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) is the scion of Harry Potter royalty; bears voiced by Michael Gambon and Imelda Staunton in a brief flashback that kicks off the film. Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins head his adoptive family in London. Hugh Grant is a remarkably good sport, taking on the role of Phoenix Buchanan, a villainous thespian hasbeen.
But even the minor roles are stocked with good performers. Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd) pops up as a forensic investigator. Jim Broadbent reprises his role as an antiques dealer. There’s Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous) as Buchanan’s agent. And when Paddington lands in jail (a misunderstanding, of course), he meets a surly chef played by Brendan Gleeson. The chef’s name, tattooed on his knuckles, is Nuckel’s, with a capital N and a greengrocer’s apostrophe.
2. Don’t be afraid to be old-fashioned.
The first Paddington kept itself away from modernity; even the internet seemed not to exist in its quaint (though happily multicultural) Britain, any more than it did in Michael Bond’s books, first published in 1958. This one doubles down on the anachronisms; key plot points revolve around a printing press, a newsstand, and an old-fashioned fair. The climax is set aboard a pair of steam locomotives! You may scoff, but here’s a film that is never going to age any more than when it was brand new. It’s also aware that parents, even grandparents, are going to have to sit through it. And the kids at a preview screening seemed delighted with its whimsy.
3. And speaking of whimsy ...
Paddington’s adventure in this film begins with the discovery of a pop-up book about London, which director and co-writer Paul King whisks us into as though we could be shrunk down to wander through its pages. (It also functions as a knowing nod to the simple animated TV series from the 1970s, which used paper cut-outs as backdrops.) And there’s a prison break sequence that feels as though Wes Anderson had stepped in to guest-direct.
4. Remember, funny comes in many forms.
There’s even less grossout humour here than in the first movie, and the rest of the yucks come from all directions. There’s a lovely shout-out to Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times; a clever play on the famous Shakespearean stage direction “Exit pursued by a bear”; and some almost Pythonesque surreality. Trying to explain how a statue in St. Paul’s Cathedral got smashed during the night, a coffee-drinking guard says merely: “A nun went berserk.” And then, seeming to feel that a couple of more words are required of him: “It happens.”
5. Let the story lead you.
All too often, kids’ movies with characters in the titles (Garfield, Marmaduke, Smurfs, etc.) seem to feel obligated to put said character on the screen for every available second. Not so Paddington 2, which spends time with his human family and neighbours, Grant’s treasure-obsessed bad guy, and even Paddington’s newfound jailhouse friends, making them into more than just pivots from which to swing jokes.
The result might just be the best bear movie since Winnie the Pooh. The filmmakers may even have scooped another lesson from Alejandro Inarritu’s Oscarwinning 2015 film, The Revenant; that a little bear goes a long way.