London. Anthropomorphic bear Paddington wants to buy a 3D postcard-book about London for his aunt’s birthday. However, the book is stolen from the store by washed-up actor Phoenix, a master of disguise, while the police mistakenly arrests Paddington for the crime. Paddington is sent to prison, where he forms an unlikely friendship with a brute cook, who helps him escape. Together with his foster family, the Browns, Paddington finds out Phoenix was the book because it contains clues to a hidden treasure, but luckily the villain is stopped and arrested, clearing Paddington’s reputation.
“Paddington 2” established an unlikely sensation and an almost mythical reputation—even though a sequel, it received even more praise than the 1st film, and actually became one of the rare movies with an astonishing 100% positive reviews on critics’ website Rotten Tomatoes. While such a high consensus is in reality a little bit overrated and overhyped, since this is no chef-d'œuvre, “Paddington 2” is still a surprisingly fun film with an universal inspiration that entertains both the kids and the grown ups, and has at times some wonderfully creative and unique gags. When you watch its first 20 minutes, you might feel a little bit stupid, since it seems like the opening to a typically harmless kid’s film starring a humanoid bear, yet once Paddington lands in prison, the jokes become remarkably rampant.
One of the best ones is when Paddington talks with other prison inmates about the bad food (“It’s not as bad as it seems. It’s even worse”), and thus stands up to complain to the cook, Knuckles, a brute so scary that every inmate is afraid of him. Clumsy as he is, Paddington accidentally throws ketchup at Knuckles’ apron, but then when he tries to wipe it off with mustard, it makes the stain only worse—while the camera cuts to a wide shot of the kitchen, where every inmate is now hiding under their tables, too afraid to look what will happen to Paddington now. In another joke, Knuckles has a deal and wants to have a 'brute handshake', so he spits into his hand and gives it to Paddington—who just spits into Knuckles' hand, too, without touching it. Hugh Grant has a field day as the main villain, actor Phoenix, who is, congruently, a master of disguise, and thus puts on costumes while searching for the treasure, ranging from a nun up to a man with a beard. Alas, some six sketches are made about the suspects, one for each of Phoenix’s disguise, all until Mrs Brown sits next to Phoenix—and she suddenly has a “flash” of all six sketches popping on Phoenix’s head, as she realizes he is all of these characters. Some omissions are still there: the Brown family is kind of a weak link, as they are rather standardly written and underused, acting more as extras, whereas neither the sequence of Paddington on a dog chasing a burglar, nor the finale are nowhere as fun as the rest of the movie. The second half exhausted all of its good jokes, since it is just a standard chase of the burglar on autopilot. Simple, yet so effective: this film demonstrates just how funny the most innocent, family-friendly jokes can be.
Grade:++
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