‘Paddington 2’ outdoes original

Warner Bros. made a huge jump in quality with their new film, “Paddington 2 ,” which, in my opinion is way better than its 2014 original, “Paddington.”

In this movie, Paddington (voiced by Ben Wishaw) needs to get a present for his Aunt Lucy’s (voiced by Imelda Staunton) birthday.

He goes to Mr. Gruber’s Antiques, where Mr. Gruber (Jim Broadbent) suggests a pop-up book of London in exchange for $250.

In order to raise the money, Paddington gets a job as a sweeper at a hair salon.

After getting fired for accidentally giving someone a bad hair day, Paddington employs himself as a window cleaner.

But, just when he almost has enough money for the pop-up book, a clever thief steals the book, and Paddington gets framed and ends up in the Big House. It is then that the real story begins.

This magically mystical story gets four and a half stars for Warner Bros.’s extremely realistic effects in combination with the abstract ideas of “Paddington 2.”

The movie is a mix of realistic animation and liveaction, a mix that works beautifully, especially in the scenes where the pop-up book shows Paddington and his Aunt Lucy wandering through a book that also happens to have pictures of people from real-life, and when also when Paddington is whipping up some marmalade.

“Paddington 2” is better than the first Paddington because the plot was more complicated.

I think that, if the Warner Bros. team from 2014 had made this movie, they would’ve stopped at Paddington needing a present for Aunt Lucy, which is funny, but not as complex and interesting as the plot developed for this new film.

And little touches matter, too: The film made me laugh out loud when Paddington said “Mr. Gruber, be serious,” which was ironic because not only does he say this with a lot of fruit on his head, but also after using a toothbrush to clean his ears and nose.

Overall, I would recommend this film to any age because the humor is relatively easy to understand and there’s not intense violence anywhere in the plot.

My only hesitation for very young viewers is that they add some unnecessary drama and mystery which may be confusing for the youngest viewers.

The movie is a mix of realistic

animation and live-action, a

mix that works beautifully