Bear antics offer hilarious spectacle Paddington 2 (G)
103mins ★★★★ 1⁄2
Paddington’s Aunt Lucy always believed that, in London, the rivers ran with marmalade and the streets were paved with bread.
While not exactly true, life at Windsor Gardens is pretty good for our young Peruvian ursus when we join the action second time around.
Mrs Brown (Sally Hawkins) is plotting a cross-Channel swim, teenager Judy (Madeleine Harris) has started her own newspaper and her brother Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) has joined the hip crowd. Even Mr Brown (Hugh Bonneville) has a new found vitality, if only because of a midlife crisis caused by being passed over for a promotion at work.
So when Paddington discovers the perfect present for his beloved aunt’s birthday – a pop-up book of the city’s major landmarks – comes at a price, he decides to fundraise for it himself. But just when he’s about to reach his goal, one of his newer neighbours gets wind of the precious parchment. Phoenix Buchanan (a magnificently Machiavellian Hugh Grant) is a oncefamed thespian who has fallen on hard times.
Still dreaming of performing the greatest one-man show the West End has ever seen, Buchanan believes the book has history and could be the key to finding a fortune.
As with the hilarious and highly entertaining 2014 original, Paddington
provides some of the best family entertainment you’ll have at the cinema all year.
Returning director Paul King keeps the action and jokes coming thick and fast, while also allowing his vast cast of the creme of British acting talent to shine. Apart from the bear himself (beautifully voiced again by Ben Whishaw), the real stars are two newcomers. Brendan Gleeson’s Knuckles McGinty and Grant’s selfabsorbed Buchanan are comic creations for the ages in what is a fitting tribute to Paddington creator Michael Bond, who died in June.
– James Croot