Director: Paul King
Writers: Paul King, Hamish McColl
Starring: Ben Wishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Nicole Kidman
Being the relatively young person I am, my entire
familiarity with Paddington Bear is a stuffed toy with misty-eyed anecdotes
from my close relatives. After seeing the most recent cinematic instalment of
this personally unknown franchise, I am more than inclined to look into the
lineage of the anthropomorphic marmalade loving bear.
A very rare species of bear is discovered in a place known as ‘Darkest Peru’. This species is able to learn English and construct a marmalade squeezing rube-goldberg. After an earthquake levels the forest of their residence, the protagonist’s aunt must check into the bear retirement home and the soon to be named, Paddington [Ben Wishaw], flees to London.
Children’s movies have an unfortunate tendency to recycle jokes at nauseam. The best jokes that the comedy provides are ones that are new and exciting. There is one scene where two security guards are playing a self-devised game in which they guess the nutritional content inside a popular product. I was almost in tears wondering how they came to start playing this game. They even seemed comfortable with it as if it was a thing they have been doing for years.
Another scene shows why the Brown family father is such a boring person. They use a matching transition (which I love) and the joke, which has probably been used before, was given a hilarious spin. The jokes in the movie felt fresh and as a comedy, you would hope so. I certainly did laugh throughout the movie.
The thing that struck me the most when watching the movie was it’s intermittent spells of great cinematography. There are aerial shots that are worryingly reminiscent of the ‘Raid 2’. There is a scene in which Paddington first arrives at the eponymous station. The camera is bunged right down on the ground with the 3 foot tall bear making even the audience members feel claustrophobic amongst the suspiciously uninterested commuters.
Where the movie trips over its willies is in the children that were cast. They achieved the triple double of poorly done child characters in movies. They were acted boringly, written boringly and there were two of them, who were boring. To their merit, the acting wasn’t the worst a child has done but their performances really made me dislike them. Especially Judy [Madeleine Harris]. She was attempted to be made interesting by having Paddington narrate his writing about letters to his Aunt [Imelda Staunton] about his host family. She apparently had some sort of interesting trait but it was so forgettable that… I forgot. Jonathan [Samuel Joslin] differs in that his proficiency in Meccano structures led to a couple visually attractive shots. Overall, the children felt more like props than characters.
Another problem that I had with the movie was that there seemed to be no one anywhere unless they were supposed to be there. The only notable scene in which extras were used was in the station scene. It was actually rather eerie at the end of the movie when the children feel compelled to have a snowball fight and no other children are in sight on the entire street. I have a feeling the street was bought out entirely by the Brown family except for Mr. Curry [Peter Capaldi] so that he can be creepy. It didn’t massively affect my enjoyment of the film but was questionable nonetheless.
Paddington is the latest incarnation of the age-old bear that loves marmalade. It was funny exciting and had surprisingly great cinematography. The children were underwhelming and sets contained a scary lack of people. It was a lot of fun to watch and I highly recommend it. So remember my friends, “It’s actually rather fun”!
‘Paddington’ receives a: 7/10
A very rare species of bear is discovered in a place known as ‘Darkest Peru’. This species is able to learn English and construct a marmalade squeezing rube-goldberg. After an earthquake levels the forest of their residence, the protagonist’s aunt must check into the bear retirement home and the soon to be named, Paddington [Ben Wishaw], flees to London.
Children’s movies have an unfortunate tendency to recycle jokes at nauseam. The best jokes that the comedy provides are ones that are new and exciting. There is one scene where two security guards are playing a self-devised game in which they guess the nutritional content inside a popular product. I was almost in tears wondering how they came to start playing this game. They even seemed comfortable with it as if it was a thing they have been doing for years.
Another scene shows why the Brown family father is such a boring person. They use a matching transition (which I love) and the joke, which has probably been used before, was given a hilarious spin. The jokes in the movie felt fresh and as a comedy, you would hope so. I certainly did laugh throughout the movie.
The thing that struck me the most when watching the movie was it’s intermittent spells of great cinematography. There are aerial shots that are worryingly reminiscent of the ‘Raid 2’. There is a scene in which Paddington first arrives at the eponymous station. The camera is bunged right down on the ground with the 3 foot tall bear making even the audience members feel claustrophobic amongst the suspiciously uninterested commuters.
Where the movie trips over its willies is in the children that were cast. They achieved the triple double of poorly done child characters in movies. They were acted boringly, written boringly and there were two of them, who were boring. To their merit, the acting wasn’t the worst a child has done but their performances really made me dislike them. Especially Judy [Madeleine Harris]. She was attempted to be made interesting by having Paddington narrate his writing about letters to his Aunt [Imelda Staunton] about his host family. She apparently had some sort of interesting trait but it was so forgettable that… I forgot. Jonathan [Samuel Joslin] differs in that his proficiency in Meccano structures led to a couple visually attractive shots. Overall, the children felt more like props than characters.
Another problem that I had with the movie was that there seemed to be no one anywhere unless they were supposed to be there. The only notable scene in which extras were used was in the station scene. It was actually rather eerie at the end of the movie when the children feel compelled to have a snowball fight and no other children are in sight on the entire street. I have a feeling the street was bought out entirely by the Brown family except for Mr. Curry [Peter Capaldi] so that he can be creepy. It didn’t massively affect my enjoyment of the film but was questionable nonetheless.
Paddington is the latest incarnation of the age-old bear that loves marmalade. It was funny exciting and had surprisingly great cinematography. The children were underwhelming and sets contained a scary lack of people. It was a lot of fun to watch and I highly recommend it. So remember my friends, “It’s actually rather fun”!
‘Paddington’ receives a: 7/10
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