Paddington 2 : A charmer all the way

Well, the cute bear is back, lending quite a few of his signatures awww moments in London. Same as original, he is with the Browns whose two kids are obviously grown up from the last time they smuggled Paddington into the house for him to get permanent residency in human enclosures with all the human trappings — the love, the belonging, the fun and the frolic. All in all, it is big-time family time film which the viewers will savour with similar emotions of love and indulgence.

The good — and somewhat rare — thing about this No 2 in the Paddington series is that it is as good as if not better than the first one when Paddington found a home and was being eternally in danger of being hunted down by some lab-museum freaks. This time round, no such existential problems but for a pop-up London book which Paddington wants to gift to his aunt Lucy whose dream to visit the mega city could never materialise after she decided to rescue a cub from dashing waters, that cub being Paddington.

The delectable — and aged now — Hugh Grant is the villain of the piece here but his seasoned abilities to merge into a million characters gives the film some pace and gravitas which, for Grant fans, is a mixed delight.

Paddington 2 comes with its old world familial charm with the small bear being the apple of the eye of his colony, quite comfortable in his small chores before he visits an antique shop and stumbles upon the magic book which costs a bomb – £1,000 which Paddington tries to earn.

That brings in the slow gentle humour that keeps the film going as Paddington stumbles from attempts to be a barber, a window cleaner and what not to earn the money for the book.

Sadly, all this leads him erroneously to the prison once the book is stolen and his fingerprints are found all over the place after a wily Hugh Grant literally vanishes into smoke after picking the book up for a treasure hunt that will bring him back into the reckoning as an actor he was of yore.

All this and more keep this sequel going at a briskly happy pace and earns it the points that Paddington’s mantra for life accords to life itself — that of goodness, honesty, commitment, love and trust.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 14 January, 2018