The ironically named Phoenix has just moved into this elegant west London neighbourhood, which is more or less as it was when Hugh Grant was here for Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill in 1999: picturesque, and evidently not yet the preserve of the super-rich.
#PADDINGTON 2 LENGTH TV#
He is an ageing, cravat-wearing actor named Phoenix Buchanan with a moderate career behind him, brooding about one day getting a one-man thesp spectacular in London’s West End but now reduced to doing Clement Freud-style dog food TV ads. It may be bad form to begin with any character other than the young ursine hero himself, but Hugh Grant completely pinches this, with an outrageously scene-stealing turn as the appalling villain. The uproarious finale meanwhile has something of Mel Brooks.
#PADDINGTON 2 LENGTH MOVIE#
The day-glo primary coloured design gives the movie a storybook feel, at some places a little like Wes Anderson. And although one could say its work on diversity is not complete, the film has a fair bit of material – now more pertinent than ever – about the way a confident, happy nation welcomes immigrants. There’s a sight-gag involving the spurious breaking of a valuable vase that I particularly enjoyed. The film is pitched with insouciant ease and a lightness of touch at both children and adults without any self-conscious shifts in irony or tone: it’s humour with the citrus tang of top-quality thick-cut marmalade. Their screenplay perfectly catches the tone of the great master himself, Michael Bond, author of the original books, who sadly died in June this year at the age of 91, creative and productive to the end.
This is the follow-up to the first Paddington movie of 2014 and it’s a tremendously sweet-natured, charming, unassuming and above all funny film with a story that just rattles along, powered by a nonstop succession of Grade-A gags conjured up by screenwriters Paul King (who also directs), Simon Farnaby and Jon Croker. This year’s Christmas treat has arrived early, and Paddington Bear has incidentally shown us that Blade Runner isn’t the only film around capable of giving us an exciting and impressive sequel. Paddington Bear to front M&S Christmas advertising campaign
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