Paddington 2 at the Brighton Odeon – A must for anyone looking for a trip to the cinema this end of 2017 whether it’s first-daters, families, kids’ parties or one of those ever-so-ironic trips to the movies for students who should know better but are really missing their childhoods.
Well, it’s probably not the coolest choice for first-daters, who might have more of an eye on whichever arthouse cinema is showing Eisenstein’s October, and it’s less of a talking point than It’s a Wonderful Life, but there’s something so miraculously well-played about this second offering from the mega-franchise that’s taken on the 1950s literary phenomenon.
I went with a fourteen year-old, who loved it and an 11 year-old to whom the books are a tad tough-going and nuanced for an easy bedtime story – he also loved it. As with the first film, this sequel manages to keep plenty of the spirit of the original character, good naturedly causing chaos around over-enthusiastic helpfulness and charming naivety. What it does better is the adventure story. It’s something that the makers obviously felt an essential driving force to a family film offering, and for fans of the original books that was enough to cause a bit of a screwy face and a dollop of doubt. Is this really what Paddington needs to be in order to capture the child interest in the twenty-first century. Apparently so, and to be fair they’ve done a great job of it, courtesy of Hugh Grant.
If there was a criticism of Paddington, the first ‘movie’, it was the heavy-weight Nicole Kidman baddie, whose demonic antics were the reason for an outlandishly prohibitive 12A certificate. Well acted and all, but not quite the spirit of Bond’s original tales. Now, together with the cosier PG rating comes Hugh Grant’s comic antagonist, motivated not only by a hidden treasure chest but also the desire to be a solo stage artiste. According to Mrs Bird he used to be a proper actor but now just does dog food adverts – one of a few gags over the heads of the kids and a scatter of satiric grist that makes those heart-warming, lump-in-the-throat scenes so successful.
Will it draw children to the books? Possibly, and the fact that Michael Bond was so heavily involved before his death this year points to plenty of ties between the Paddington-to-watch and the Paddington-to-read. It is, though, another one of those books written for children when reading mentalities – and average reading ages – were so very different. A dip into them now and it’s beautifully written stuff, gem-like touches of wit and extended misunderstandings that unravel gently around the central character’s best intentions. He goes to the bank, for example, and is confounded not only by the low interest rates but by the fact that the bank haven’t preserved his own particular 10 shilling note – it was a subtle few pages and left my own kids as non-plussed as a bear with a carpentry set and instructions from a parsimonious neighbour. All so very different from the hair-breadth escape from the train in the film, but just as good in its way.
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