I was, to put it mildly, a little shocked to see Paddington 2 come up on more than a few “best of 2017” movie lists, mostly on YouTube, but often from critics whose opinions that, even when I disagreed, I did at least respect. It was the sequel to a kids movie that came out in January. That is usually not the sign of any sort of quality. Sure, the first Paddington actually was a sweet and delightful movie, but how good could the sequel be?
Well, it turns out the movie did premier overseas before January, and HBO Max was carrying it for something like two months. As such, here I am to see if it really is that good.
Paddington (voice of Ben Whishaw) wants to find the perfect birthday gift for his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton), soon to be 100 in bear years. His life in London is going well, but Aunt Lucy never had the chance to see the city for herself. Paddington tries the antique shop owned by daffy Mr. Gruber (Jim Broadbent) and finds the perfect gift: an old pop-up book that shows off the city’s landmarks but costs far more than Paddington’s pocket money can afford. During his efforts to get a job, he mentions the book to washed-up actor Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant). Buchanan wants the book himself and steals it, framing Paddington for the crime along the way and sending the innocent young bear to prison.
Oddly enough, prison seems to largely work out for Paddington as he uses his knowledge of marmalade sandwiches and generally being sweet and polite to win over a number of the inmates, beginning with the brutal prison chef Knuckles McGinty (Brendan Gleeson). While Paddington’s human family the Browns work to secure his freedom on the outside, Paddington is making prison a much more pleasant place to be. But he doesn’t really belong there, and he still needs to get Aunt Lucy her birthday present. Can Paddington find his way to freedom?
OK, so, all the talk about how this was a great movie, well, that’s true. Setting aside that Paddington himself is a fine character, the movie is a highly creative exercise in filmmaking. Paddington, at one point, imagines his Aunt Lucy enjoying London through the sites in the book, and it takes the form of 3D bears wandering around what looks like 2D people and places, much like the old Paddington cartoon shorts I used to see on TV. There’s a lot of inventive slapstick, and the movie doesn’t skimp on the supporting characters, setting up each of the Browns as having skills that can help Paddington late in the film with a special spotlight given to Mr. Brown (Hugh Bonneville) going through a midlife crisis. My favorite joke may have been a silly-looking flashback when Mr. Brown remembers his skills at carnival games as a youth. It’s also a movie that gives a lot of talented British actors and comedians at the least quick cameos, and it’s hard to say if there’s a bad choice anywhere, whether it’s Peter Capaldi as the lone man in the neighborhood who doesn’t like Paddington to saying Sally Hawkins, who also had The Shape of Water come out that same year, involved in a subplot involving Mrs. Brown’s training to swim the English Channel.
Ultimately, this is a sweet movie where Paddington wins people over just by being nice and polite, wearing down the cruel and the hard, and none are crueler or harder than Knuckles. Wherever Paddington goes, people are nice and happy and friendly. His absence from the neighborhood shows people growing irritable while the prison flourishes with flowers and baked goods. It’s the sort of movie where even the villain gets something of a happy ending, and the worst thing that happens to anyone is probably just Mr. Brown telling Capaldi’s Mr. Curry that the busybody just will never like Paddington and he’s the only one who doesn’t. It’s funny, it’s kind, and it’s a lot of fun. Best of 2017? Well, I didn’t see it then, but I suspect if I had, it would have been on my own Top Ten list of the year too.
Grade: A
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