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“Paddington,” a live-action/CGI-animated take on the tales of the beloved stuffed bear, pulls off a pretty tricky balancing act. It manages to be both old-fashioned and high-tech. It remains faithful to the character’s roots while also placing him firmly within a contemporary setting. It’s charmingly funny and shamelessly punny. (This is a movie in which the GPS instructs a driver to bear left during a car chase, and whaddya know – there’s a bear on the left.)

But amid the word play and the antics and the international adventures, “Paddington” also functions as a rather stealthy allegory about immigration. Which, obviously, is what you want in a kids movie. Actually, writer-director Paul King approaches this fraught topic in a way that won’t seem too heavy-handed for adults, yet might even register with the kids in the audience. The words: “Please look after this bear. Thank you,” handwritten on a paper tag tied around the neck of our diminutive, furry hero, tug with an added poignancy from this perspective. Yet “Paddington,” as a whole, mostly remains light on its paws – er, feet.

King’s film offers an origin story for the marmalade-obsessed bear from Michael Bond ’s children’s books. When we first meet Paddington (voiced sweetly by Ben Whishaw with some light touches reminiscent of Robin Williams ), he’s living in Darkest Peru with his aunt and uncle ( Imelda Staunton and Michael Gambon ). Years earlier, a British explorer had visited and was amazed to discover the existence of such brilliant, talking bears. Now, when it comes time for young Paddington to make his own way in the world, his aunt sends him to London, since the explorer promised that they’d always be welcome there.

So off he goes, wearing his signature, floppy red hat and carrying plenty of his favorite food to last him throughout the long boat journey. But when he arrives in London, not only are people not amazed to meet a walking, talking bear, they rudely dismiss his genuinely friendly attempts to connect. Only the Brown family, passing by on the platform at Paddington Station – namely, the open-minded Mrs. Brown ( Sally Hawkins ) – dares to show this homeless, disheveled creature any kindness. (Thankfully, she also acknowledges what a marvel he is in his verbosity so we can all just get on with the movie.) The other family members – uptight Mr. Brown ( Hugh Bonneville ), daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris) and son Jonathan ( Samuel Joslin ) – regard him with varying degrees of skepticism.

After some clumsy and calamitous antics while adjusting to life in proper civilization, some of which are more amusing than others, Paddington seems to settle in and find a rhythm. He maintains a plucky disposition, even though his homesickness is palpable. As in “ Ted ,” the CGI effects here are seamless; the tiny toy is soft and tactile and beautifully detailed, with evocative facial gestures which help create a surprising emotional connection. Paddington also finds himself in a surprising amount of serious danger, which might be frightening for the youngest audience members. (Spoiler alert: He’s going to be OK.)

While the humor can be broad (as in Nicole Kidman ’s ruthlessly driven taxidermist in borderline-dominatrix gear) and even a little crass (as in some literal toilet humor when Paddington has trouble in the loo), “Paddington” also features some lovely and even delicate imagery. King is straight-up stealing from Wes Anderson when he depicts the Browns’ tall, narrow home as a dollhouse that opens up to reveal the family members going about their business in various rooms. And a mural of a tree painted on the wall of the Browns’ curved staircase repeatedly changes to reflect the mood of the film.

Mostly – and appropriately – it’s joyfully blossoming.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film Credits

Paddington (2015)

Rated PG mild action and rude humor

Nicole Kidman as Millicent

Peter Capaldi as Mr. Curry

Ben Whishaw as Paddington (voice)

Michael Gambon as Uncle Pastuzo (voice)

Imelda Staunton as Aunt Lucy (voice)

Sally Hawkins as Mrs. Mary Brown

Julie Walters as Mrs. Bird

Hugh Bonneville as Mr. Brown

Jim Broadbent as Mr. Gruber

• Michael Bond

Cinematography

• Erik Wilson

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“Paddington” Perfectly Captures a Particular English Sensibility

By Rebecca Mead

It’s a risky business, going to see a movie adapted from a beloved children’s book. Young readers are able to conjure an entire fictional world so vividly inside their heads that a film director’s efforts at translation can seem redundant, or even worse. Sometimes, a director’s vision can overwhelm the original: watching Spike Jonze’s “Where The Wild Things Are”—even if one admires the movie—requires an acquiescence to Jonze’s own idiosyncratic reading of Maurice Sendak’s classic picture book, a substitution of Jonze’s imagination for one’s own. Sometimes an adaptation is transparently meretricious: the 2012 movie “The Lorax” had none of the delightfulness of the 1971 book, and instead partook of the thoughtless consumption and commercialism that Dr. Seuss sought to critique.

“Paddington,” which is based upon the beloved series of books by Michael Bond about a bear found by a family at a London train station, might so easily have been a disappointment. The trailer was not altogether promising. It showcased a gross-out scene—Paddington sticking toothbrushes in his ears and loading them with earwax; Paddington sticking his head down the toilet for a drink—and featured Paddington riding a claw-foot bathtub down a spiral staircase, on a wave of excess bath water. Humor based on scatology or bodily secretions, and the use of roller-coaster special effects, seems obligatory in children’s movies, at least those made in the United States or Britain. (Hayao Miyazaki manages without them.) But they don’t figure prominently in the original books, where the extent of Bond’s bathroom humor was to have Paddington’s bathtub overflow.

In fact, “Paddington,” directed by Paul King, offers a wonderfully winning interpretation of Bond’s original. As the critics have pointed out, it successfully interpolates a plot that’s absent in any of the Paddington books, with Nicole Kidman gleefully enacting the role of a museum director with a taxidermy fetish. And Ben Whishaw’s vocal performance as the bear himself—polite, curious, hopeful—is endearing, even if the presence of teeth in Paddington’s animated mouth takes some getting used to, especially for viewers raised not just on the books but also on the stop-motion television adaptation that aired on British TV in the late seventies and early eighties. (For those not raised thus, here is the first episode .)

But “Paddington” isn’t just about a bear; it’s about an entire cultural milieu. The movie has pitch-perfect tone for a very English register of resignation. Consider the police officer who, upon hearing Mrs. Brown’s description of the missing Paddington—three feet six, with a battered hat and duffel coat, and he’s a bear—replies dolefully, “That’s not much to go on.” Then there is the pair of security guards quizzing each other on the nutritional value of a packet of biscuits—measuring out their lives with carbohydrate counts. It is a perfect vignette of a failure so profound it passes for pleasure.

In the way that it captures this cramped Englishness, “Paddington” is reminiscent, at times, of Mike Leigh, at least when Leigh is at his most forgiving. (Leigh, who typically snarls at the affluent, would likely be far less patient than King is with the Browns, who appear to have risen with the tide of gentrification, and inhabit a handsome house in one of London’s most desirable corners.) This impression is reinforced by King’s use of actors beloved by Leigh: Mrs. Brown, now mildly bohemian, is played by Sally Hawkins, who starred in Leigh’s “Happy Go Lucky”; Mr. Gruber, the Hungarian immigrant who owns an antique shop on Portobello Road, is played by Jim Broadbent, another Leigh favorite; Paddington’s Aunt Lucy has the voice of Imelda Staunton, who was remarkable in Leigh’s “Vera Drake.” King’s casting choices are often inspired, and, like the Harry Potter films, with which “Paddington” shares a producer, David Heyman, the movie is studded with appearances by celebrated British character actors and comic performers. These include Julie Walters—whose Mrs. Bird, in an acknowledgment of changing social mores, is now a relative of the Browns, rather than their housekeeper—and Geoffrey Palmer, a familiar face to anyone who grew up watching English television sitcoms of the seventies and eighties. Among other roles, Palmer was the phlegmatic guest at Fawlty Towers who insisted upon sausages for breakfast, even as the staff struggled to dispose of an inconvenient corpse.

Ostensibly, “Paddington” is about the unexpected openness of contemporary British society: the fact that even a bear from Darkest Peru can find a way to be at home in Notting Hill. But underneath that message, there is also a fond, amused depiction of enduring aspects of national character. The movie offers a gently satirical portrait of a particular English upper-middle-class sensibility: liberal, but sometimes effortfully so; emotionally restrained, but not lacking in feeling, for all that restraint. Hugh Bonneville’s Mr. Brown, who mutters “stranger danger” at his first sight of Paddington—while hustling his family along the train platform after a wholesomely educational visit to a Victorian wool museum—is a poignant representative of the middle-aged English man who so embraces limitation that he has persuaded himself that limitation is his preference. Hawkins’s Mrs. Brown, with her earnest, rebuffed attempts to sustain the connection of childhood with Judy, her sullen teen-age daughter—she brightly, desperately “darling”s Judy, almost to distraction—is the quivering embodiment of well-meaning, middle-class metropolitan motherhood.

In this sense, “Paddington” is imbued with an awareness about its cultural role that its literary precursor never had. (Bond did not know that he was creating a global phenomenon when he wrote the first of his books.) Mr. Brown, a viewer senses, is the kind of person who is pained by the omnipresence of gross-out humor in children’s movies, but if “Paddington” has gentle fun with the onset of his cultural conservatism, it doesn’t really judge him for it. Meanwhile, in its fleshing out of the character of Mrs. Brown from Bond’s original, “Paddington” makes a suggestive choice. Mrs. Brown might have had any career; given the comforts of the Bonds’ home, a remunerative one might have been most realistic. Instead, she belongs to the marginal fellowship of authors: she is a writer and illustrator of children’s books. That the movie makes a nod to the vivid and enduring appeal to the young imagination of the literary, in spite of the stimulations and seductions of the screen, is part of its charm and its truth.

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Review: ‘Paddington’ brings irresistible bear to life

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Where to start with the wondrous whimsy of “Paddington”?

Artfully and cleverly, the sweet spirit of that young bear from darkest Peru and his many London misadventures materializes brilliantly on screen in the very good hands of writer-director-conjurer Paul King.

The beloved storybook character created by Michael Bond in the late 1950s and illustrated by Peggy Fortnum are the film’s touchstones, the bear a creation of special effects, the people around him simply special. But rather than being inhibited by the great wellspring of affection that multiple generations of kids and parents have for Paddington, King seems liberated. (He was clearly just getting warmed up with the inventive but not-all-the-way-there “Bunny and the Bull.”)

The filmmaker’s taken care to ensure all the favorite story bits are there — the jungle, the marmalade, the hat, the adorable English-speaking fuzzy-wuzzy turning up in London with a “Please look after this bear” tag around his neck. But the departures, which are totally original, become inspired flights of fancy.

It gives the bear a formidable new villain in Millicent (Nicole Kidman in a strangely threatening white bob). She goes after the bear with an arched brow and some shiny taxidermy tools. He will make, you see, a fine stuffed specimen in the National History Museum’s rare-beasts collection, which Millicent keeps, ahem, expanding.

But where would we be without the bear?

The voice and the spirit of the Peruvian cub are pure Ben Whishaw. The actor seems so completely overtaken by Paddington as to no longer exist. All that are left are bear and bewilderment, but charmingly so. I knew after seeing Whishaw bring the lovelorn John Keats to life in “Bright Star” that he had the soul of a poet. It serves the often-introspective Paddington well.

The visual effects add some serious magic of their own, starting with King’s eccentric style. Whether umbrellas in the rain shot from above or a doll house with enchanting surprises behind its door, the way the director takes and toys with images elevate the film to a sort of surrealist art. The color palette is forever evolving, matching the mood of the moment and the particular person involved. From the invention to the precision, the sensibility feels a close cousin to that of filmmaker Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

Of course, the most important special effects are reserved for Paddington. Physically, the bear functions with all the ease of the humans around him. Though the eyes do their part, exceptionally expressive, it is the naturalistic look when he’s speaking that separates Paddington from all the comically bizarre talking CGI animals that populate movies and TV. Credit Framestore’s Andy Kind as visual effects and CG supervisor and Pablo Grillo as animation director for taking such care with the creature creation.

Humor, in all its various forms, is another key ingredient. Paddington represents innocent mischief, which is countered by a very dry wit. It is there from the first frame — a black-and-white clip of an explorer explaining that his Peruvian find that does feel like a funny found object from the distant past.

When the story picks up next, we’re still in the jungle where the bear who will become Paddington now lives with Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton), Uncle Pastuzo (Michael Gambon), marmalade sandwiches and stories of London, his command of the English language being refined by a gramophone and a record the explorer left behind. When an earthquake destroys that little bit of paradise, it is clear that London is where the young bear must find his future.

The underlying theme of the film, as it was in Bond’s stories, is very much about fitting in and finding a home, or at least a safe haven, surrounded by those who will let you be yourself. For Paddington, it’s the Browns, the family who stumbled across him fresh off the boat and looking ever so lost at Paddington Station. They are made up of “Downton Abbey’s” upright earl, Hugh Bonneville, as the prickly patriarch Henry; Sally Hawkins (Oscar-nominated for “Blue Jasmine”) absolutely delightful as Mary, his artistically inclined, softhearted wife; Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters) there to keep the Browns’ place at 32 Windsor Garden shipshape; and not-quite-teenage Judy (Madeleine Harris) and her younger brother, Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), are in the difficult process of growing up.

King never forgets that the world he is building is one that Paddington is seeing for the first time. So that when a toy train starts whirring round in Mr. Gruber’s (Jim Broadbent) antique shop, he begins to see what Mr. Gruber’s train ride as a child to a distant country must have looked like, the train cars suddenly filling with people passing in the aisles, a boy in one seat looking out the window.

There is a great deal of action, all of it over the top in classic slapstick style. Some are disasters tied to Paddington getting used to things like toothbrushes and bathtubs. Some involve madcap dashing about, usually to escape Millicent’s clutches. As the bear and the Browns go from one place to another, the film hits most of the major tourist sites, all of them looking as if they were lifted from a storybook.

Twitter: @betsysharkey

------------

‘Paddington’

MPAA rating: PG for mild action and rude humor

Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes

Playing: In general release

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Former Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey is an award-winning entertainment journalist and bestselling author. She left the newsroom in 2015. In addition to her critical essays and reviews of about 200 films a year for The Times, Sharkey’s weekly movie reviews appeared in newspapers nationally and internationally. Her books include collaborations with Oscar-winning actresses Faye Dunaway on “Looking for Gatsby” and Marlee Matlin on “I’ll Scream Later.” Sharkey holds a degree in journalism and a master’s in communications theory from Texas Christian University.

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• Why everyone who sees the Paddington movies can’t stop raving about them

Paddington 2 is currently the best-reviewed movie of all time on Rotten Tomatoes. With good reason.

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If you follow enough people who talk about movies on social media, you might be confused by the big discussion of the moment. It’s not about one of the big Oscar contenders. It’s not about one of the Sundance favorites. No, it’s about a computer-animated bear named Paddington, whose latest film, Paddington 2 , hit US theaters on January 12.

Paddington fans are talking about how emotional the movie made them:

PADDINGTON 2 has this really fun mid-credits scene that is great on its own but also VERY ESSENTIAL SO I COULD PULL MYSELF TOGETHER BEFORE THE LIGHTS WENT UP AND THE YOUTHS SAW ME OPENLY WEEPING AT THE BEAR MOVIE. — Joanna Robinson (@jowrotethis) January 21, 2018

Or how the movie inspired them to be better people:

I know we make jokes on this website but I’m not kidding: Paddington makes me want to be a better person, friend, neighbor, brother, son. — Kevin T. Porter (@KevinTPorter) January 22, 2018

They’re arguing about which Paddington movie was better:

PADDINGTON > PADDINGTON 2 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) — Griffin Newman (@GriffLightning) January 20, 2018

And making Paddington -themed signs for the recent women’s march:

My brilliant wife made a Paddington sign for the Women's March tomorrow. I am shook. pic.twitter.com/Dsmq2fD3XP — david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 20, 2018

And some of them are just wondering if it’s finally time to take the Paddington plunge:

You fuckers really are going to make me see this movie, aren't you? And then it's going to turn out the entire thing is 90 straight minutes of "Never Gonna Give You Up." https://t.co/DRewoPj0DR — Tasha Robinson (@TashaRobinson) January 21, 2018

This is a lot of excitement for a children’s film about a computer-animated bear who is very polite to people.

But Paddington fever extends beyond Twitter. Paddington 2 is currently the best-reviewed film of all time on Rotten Tomatoes (an admittedly useless stat that will get tanked the second someone decides to add one negative review, as happened with Lady Bird ), and though its opening weekend box office was a little soft, it only fell 25 percent in week two, a very good hold, especially for the dark filmgoing days of January.

And I, dear reader, can attest to Paddington 2’ s power, having gone to an 8 pm screening in Los Angeles, well-attended by kids, parents, and assorted couples having a date night (your brave correspondent included). We all laughed at the right parts and teared up at the right parts and just generally got into the movie’s groove. It was the most attentive I’ve seen an audience in a long while.

But why this movie? Why this bear? There are a handful of good reasons for Paddington’ s growing, very polite world domination. But before we get there, I need to tell you a bit about what Paddington is.

Who is Paddington? (Besides a bear, of course.)

Paddington was the creation of children’s book author Michael Bond, who wrote a series of very sweet, small-scale books about the titular bear, so named because he was found at Paddington Station in London after having spent his early years in “darkest Peru.” (Bond originally wanted Paddington to have arrived from somewhere in Africa, until it was pointed out to him bears don’t live in Africa.)

Adopted by the Brown family — Henry, Mary, Judy, and Jonathan — Paddington explores London and gets to know this very busy new world he’s landed in, especially his new neighborhood of Windsor Gardens. His blue jacket and red hat complete his iconic appearance, and everyone in London seems to be just fine with the idea that he is a talking bear who loves marmalade.

Paddington is, in essence, a very well-behaved 7-year-old. He is polite to all, looks for the good in other people, and takes in the world with great curiosity. But he also has a tendency to get in over his head and make huge messes, which are mostly forgiven because he’s such a thoughtful and kind bear. He is a classic children’s book character: gentle but rambunctious.

Bond produced numerous Paddington titles between 1958 (with the first book, A Bear Called Paddington ) and his death in 2017, with his final Paddington book to be published posthumously in the summer of 2018 (commemorating the 60th anniversary of the first book). Those books ranged from collections of one-off Paddington stories he published in other publications to children’s picture books. But the “core” Paddington titles are the 15 chapter books about the bear published between 1958 and 2018. These contain several smaller adventures featuring the bear, each taking up its own chapter.

Notably, Paddington’s exploits have been adapted several times for television, with the 1975 BBC series being a particular standout for its blend of a stop-motion puppet Paddington with two-dimensional, traditionally illustrated backgrounds. It looked like nothing else in kids’ TV at the time, and it underlined why Londoners seemed so unfazed by Paddington’s presence: He was more “real” than they were, an idea that certainly must have seemed true to his youngest fans.

Despite Paddington’s TV success, it took until 2014 (and 2015 in the US) for the bear to get a big-screen movie adaptation, and everything about it seemed to be a massive warning sign. Colin Firth, who had originally been contracted as the voice of Paddington, dropped out of the project mere months before it was to be released, and he was hastily replaced by Ben Whishaw , whose younger-sounding voice might prove to be a better fit for the character. The trailers played up the movie’s broadest, wackiest moments. It seemed like yet another cheap kids’ movie: computer-animated characters and very real actors interacting unconvincingly, and lots of gags about bodily functions.

But Paddington was a stealthy success. Thanks to winsome writing and direction from Paul King , and a cast filled with heavy hitters (including everyone from Sally Hawkins to Hugh Bonneville to Nicole Kidman to Peter Capaldi ), the movie was greeted with warm reviews and more than $250 million at the worldwide box office.

A sequel was only natural at that point, though that sequel had to switch distributors in the US, from the imploding Weinstein Company (undone by its co-founder Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct ) to Warner Bros.

But what would have been hard to predict was that Paddington 2 would match — and in the eyes of some critics (this one included), exceed — its predecessor.

Paddington 2 is a non-grating children’s film, and beautifully made too

The first thing you might notice if you watch the first Paddington (which is readily available on Netflix ) is that it’s not constantly blaring to get your attention. Where many kids’ movies turn up the volume and shout at viewers, Paddington is a comparatively gentle experience. The bear’s adventures are whimsical more than they are boisterous, and even when he causes mayhem, it’s very small-scale mayhem. Indeed, in the second film, a major plot point revolves around him giving someone a bad haircut — not exactly a high-stakes situation.

The movie Paddington most reminds me of in terms of its gentle, bucolic storybook feel is the 1995 film Babe , which proved a surprising Oscar favorite. Like that movie, Paddington is a sneaky, subtle call for tolerance and good manners. And like that movie’s sequel, Babe: Pig in the City , Paddington 2 is a (slightly) more serious look at what happens when you put the titular character’s pleas for politeness into a darker context.

In the sequel, Paddington is framed for the theft of a very expensive, one-of-a-kind pop-up book (which he has been saving up for, intending to send to his Aunt Lucy back in Peru). The villain is the washed-up actor Phoenix Buchanan, played by Hugh Grant in a performance of such hammy precision that I think I laughed at every single thing he did. But because nobody suspects the handsome, upstanding Phoenix — and too many people suspect a bear — Paddington is sent to jail, where he meets the ferocious Knuckles McGinty ( Brendan Gleeson ) and sees his every belief put to the test. Meanwhile, the Browns do their damnedest to win Paddington’s release.

I don’t believe it’s a spoiler to say that things turn out well in the end. Good triumphs over evil, and Paddington is reunited with his adoptive family. But the road there is filled with stressful moments, darkest hours before the dawn, and trying times when Paddington wonders if doing the right thing is really worth it.

The second film also scales up the level of production just a bit, with a climactic train chase that would have blown the first movie’s budget. (At times, the comedic action beats in these movies recall the best of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton in their commitment to stuffing as many visual gags into an action sequence as possible. Paddington 2 even directly quotes the famous “trapped in mechanical gears” sequence from Chaplin’s Modern Times .)

King (who once again directs and co-wrote the screenplay with Simon Farnaby) has a knack for turning his London setting into its best storybook self. Panoramic wide shots capture the day-to-day activities of Windsor Gardens, everybody in the sleepy little neighborhood going about their work. When Paddington is sent to prison, the neighborhood starts to fall apart without the little bear to be kind to everyone. The scenes are peppered with little vignettes, or with performances by a calypso band that comments on the action.

The prison is a gloomier setting, but it’s also an excellent stage for production numbers. The Browns’ home, too, has the feel of an elaborate pop-up diorama, filled with fun little details to pore over in the edges of the frame. In particular, the Paddington movies are terrific at using these little bits with the Browns to set up story points that seem unnecessary at first. Until, say, Mary training to swim the English Channel comes in handy at precisely the right moment in the third act. Even the obvious computer animation of Paddington has a hyper-real quality to it that blends perfectly with the storybook frames.

King and the cast turn the world of Paddington 2 into a soothing, enjoyable night at the movies. But there’s another, more subtle reason Paddington 2 resonates at this particular moment in history.

Paddington 2 is a gentle defense of the need for immigrant communities

Perhaps my favorite Paddington 2 media riff is that of the British magazine Sight & Sound, which gave its review the Shakespeare-referencing headline “Brexit, pursued by a bear.” The story of Paddington is inherently an immigrant story, and even in the first film, King and his collaborators celebrated the increased multiculturalism of London in the 21st century. (There’s that calypso band, after all.) But Paddington 2 takes these ideas to new heights.

Don’t mistake this for the movie preaching to anybody, even in a scene in which the Browns confront their constantly vigilant neighbor Mr. Curry (Capaldi) over his inability to accept that Paddington is a good little bear, simply because Mr. Curry has prejudged Paddington due to how he looks. Paddington 2 is a wonderfully made movie in and of itself, and it understands that its message is best grasped when couched in an entertaining, clockwork contraption of a story.

The message is there. Paddington’s neighbors are a diverse, multicultural group of characters, but the police clearly think Paddington committed a crime rather than Phoenix because one seems more like a criminal to them.

Hiding this sort of stuff in metaphor is a time-honored tradition in children’s movies (see also: Babe and its sequel), and because kids will already see themselves in Paddington, it’s easier to make the leap to understanding, at the very least, anti-talking-bear prejudice. Similarly, Paddington’s insistence on seeing the best in everyone — even the fearsome Knuckles — will hopefully spark similar inclinations in kids.

I hesitate to talk about this too much, lest Paddington 2 become an object of a culture war it has no interest in taking part in. Still, King and his collaborators were making this movie in the midst of Brexit, with many in the UK made uncomfortable by increased levels of immigration to their country and unsure of what that meant for the nation’s future. Paddington 2 insists at every turn that kindness, empathy, and marmalade are the solutions to the vast majority of life’s problems.

Early in Paddington 2 , Paddington says, “If we’re kind and polite, the world will be right.” It says more about reality than it does the movie that this might be read as a radical political statement.

To watch this movie is to imagine its title character fixing everyone in the audience with one of his trademark hard stares, until we all, abashed, vow to do better.

Paddington 2 is in theaters. Paddington is on Netflix.

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“No bears were harmed in the making of this film,” boast the closing credits of “ Paddington ” — and happily, that promise extends to Michael Bond’s ursine literary creation. Fifty-six years after first appearing in print, the accident-prone Peruvian furball is brought to high-tech but thoroughly endearing life in this bright, breezy and oh-so-British family romp from writer-director Paul King and super-producer David Heyman. Affectionately honoring the everyday quirks of Bond’s stories, while subtly updating their middle-class London milieu, King’s film may divide loyal Paddingtophiles with its high-stakes caper plot, but their enraptured kids won’t care a whit. If Paddington’s signature line — “I think I’m in trouble again” — is absent from his feature-length debut, that’s because even the fretful bear should feel bullish about its prospects.

With “Paddington” out in Blighty on Nov. 28, roaring domestic holiday biz is a given, though whether TWC-Dimension can sell U.S. auds on its ample charms when the pic opens Stateside in January is more of a question mark. From its ska-singing sidewalk chorus to the marmalade sandwiches stacked in its hero’s trademark hat, King’s film is thankfully reluctant to neutralize the national flavor of Bond’s distinctly English creation. (Substituting Oreo cookies for oatmeal digestives in one witty scene of biscuit analysis is about as egregious as the concessions to foreign auds get.) Nevertheless, just as Heyman’s blockbusting “Harry Potter” series cannily fostered global Anglophilia through universal storytelling, this intrepid traveler could forge a similar path to more modest international success.

After all, few figures from children’s literature embody the spirit of cultural curiosity more directly than Paddington Bear, a plucky naif who journeys all the way from Lima to London in search of a better life. King’s script, written with a story assist from Hamish McColl, fills in a more elaborate backstory for him than Bond’s books do: A swooping, colorful first act details Paddington’s blissful childhood with elderly relatives in the rainforests of Peru. The idyll is rudely destroyed by an earthquake that leaves his uncle Pastuzo (voiced by Michael Gambon) dead and his aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton) headed to a retirement home.

Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw , a more suitably boyish mid-production replacement for Colin Firth) is left alone to make the transatlantic odyssey. It’s a trip of which Lucy had only dreamed, since being educated in all things English by a friendly explorer from the Geographers’ Guild of Great Britain — a detail illustrated in an amusing introductory pastiche of 1930s newsreels that includes, of all things, a supremely unlikely reference to Jane Campion’s “The Piano.” Such sophisticated in-jokery is to be expected of King: Best known for his work on the wildly absurdist TV comedy “The Mighty Boosh,” he’s a pleasingly left-field choice of helmer for this project.

Paddington’s eventual arrival at his namesake train station, and his subsequent discovery by the well-to-do Brown family, hews closely to the setup of Bond’s first book, “A Bear Called Paddington” — with the key difference that their adoption of the animal is here announced as a temporary measure, his plaintive quest for a permanent home driving the film’s story.

As in the books, the audience is required to believe that the arrival of a talking bear in London is unusual rather than extraordinary: Uptight dad and risk analyst Henry ( Hugh Bonneville ) is reluctant to take Paddington in, but mostly due to the insurance challenges the beast presents. It’s his kindly, kooky wife, Mary (an utterly disarming Sally Hawkins ), rather than his wary children, Judy and Jonathan (Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin, both spikier than their golly-gosh counterparts on the page), who persuades him otherwise. Still, it’s not long before the bear begins winning over the family at large with his wide-eyed astonishment at urban living.

It’s here where the film is forced to part ways most drastically from its literary source: Where Bond’s books are built from drolly episodic accounts of everyday misadventures, that’s a tricky structure to maintain in a mainstream children’s film. In the interest of galvanizing the narrative and amping up the peril, King and McColl have devised a cheerfully silly, action-heavy chase plot that cribs heavily from “101 Dalmatians,” complete with its own Cruella de Vil: bleach-bobbed taxidermist Millicent Clyde ( Nicole Kidman ), who’s determined to nab one particular Peruvian breed of bear for her collection.

This narrative development, replete with “Mission: Impossible”-style stunts and superb location use of London’s neo-Gothic Natural History Museum, may sit slightly oddly with the gentler situational comedy of Paddington’s other exploits, but the transition is eased by the film’s bouncy pacing and consistently dry, cockeyed humor, in which Londoners’ seen-it-all cynicism comes in for repeated ribbing. (“It’s not much to go on,” a police detective wearily tells Mary after she files a missing-person report for a bear in a blue duffel coat.) Meanwhile, Kidman, splendidly served by costume designer Lindy Hemming in a range of sexed-up safari gear, is having such infectiously vampish fun as the villain — bringing a Joanna Lumley-style purr even to lines like “Get stuffed, bear” — that one can hardly begrudge her presence.

Technically, the film finds King retaining much of the eccentric visual invention from his independent 2009 debut, “Bunny and the Bull,” albeit with a hefty glob of studio polish. Gary Williamson’s excellent, primary-colored production design is heavy on nuts-and-bolts gadgetry and clever doll’s-house miniaturization that recall the work of Wes Anderson. The Browns’ West London terrace home (with its interior cherry-tree fresco that seems an oblique nod to “Mary Poppins”) is an ever-unfolding designer’s delight.

The challenge lies in matching that handcrafted aesthetic to the state-of-the-art visual effects (courtesy chiefly of Framestore, the collective that worked miracles on the Heyman-produced “Gravity”) that allow Paddington such characterful fluidity of movement and expression.  The balance is successfully struck, with the effects warmly recalling the old-school animatronic work of Jim Henson: The film may be a world away from the rudimentary paper-and-plush-toy technique of the BBC’s “Paddington” shorts from the 1970s, but their scrappy spirit is intact. 

Reviewed at Dolby Screening Rooms, London, Nov. 16, 2014. Running time: 95 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.) A Dimension Films (in U.S.)/Studiocanal (in U.K.) release of a Studiocanal presentation of a Heyday Films production in association with Anton Capital Entertainment, Amazon Prime Instant Video. (International sales: Studiocanal, London.) Produced by David Heyman. Executive producers, Rosie Allison, Jeremy Clifford. Co-producer, Alexandra Ferguson.
• Crew: Directed by Paul King. Screenplay, King, based on characters created by Michael Bond; story, King, Hamish McColl. Camera (color, widescreen), Erik Wilson; editor, Mark Everson; music, Nick Urata; music supervisor, Matt Biffa; production designer, Gary Williamson; art directors, Justin Brown, Stephen Lawrence; set decorator, Cathy Cosgrove; costume designer, Lindy Hemming; sound (Dolby Digital), Danny Hambrook; supervising sound editor, Glenn Freemantle; re-recording mixers, Andy Nelson, Niv Adiri, Ian Tapp; visual effects supervisor, Andy Kind; visual effects, Framestore; stunt coordinator, Steve Griffin; line producer, Manohar Tahilramani; associate producer, Ben Irving; assistant director, Jack Ravenscroft; second unit director, Tim Webber; second unit camera, John Sorapure; casting, Nina Gold, Theo Park.
• With: Sally Hawkins, Hugh Bonneville, Nicole Kidman, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, Julie Walters, Peter Capaldi, Jim Broadbent, Matt Lucas, Kayvan Novak, Tim Downey, Matt King. Voices: Ben Whishaw, Imelda Staunton, Michael Gambon.

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Paddington, film review: Michael Bond's polite hero is brought into the modern day

(pg) dir. paul king; starring hugh bonneville, sally hawkins, 95mins, article bookmarked.

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Paddington begins, naturally, in darkest Peru, with a pastiche of those scratchy old black-and-white ethnographic documentaries in which an English explorer befriends the natives. Only in this case, the natives are talking bears.

The explorer promises them a warm reception, should they ever have cause to visit him in London, but by the time a natural disaster forces one of the bears' youngsters to voyage overseas, we have reached the present day, and poor Paddington initially finds London "a strange, cold city".

He's taken in by the terribly nice middle-class Brown family, of course, but reluctantly and conditionally at first, and as the only talking brown bear in the city, he still feels somewhat alone and uncertain. At one point we see him sleeping rough on a park bench.

What the makers of this heartwarming British comedy have done, to bring Michael Bond's endearingly polite ursine hero into the modern day, is make a film about the immigrant experience.

The soundtrack features Lord Kitchener's "London Is the Place for Me" and other ironic Windrush-era calypso songs, performed onscreen by Tobago Crusoe and his band. They may be the only black faces on show in a world of Georgian-fronted three-storey townhouses and marmalade sandwiches, but it's a neat way of acknowledging the ways in which the city has changed since the first Paddington books were published in the late Fifties.

The film-makers also put Paddington on a skateboard and send him kite-surfing; give him a villainous taxidermist from whose clutches he must escape; quote from Mission: Impossible and Raiders of the Lost Ark; fill every scene with witty gags and slapstick; find parts for some of Britain's most recognisable acting and comedy talent; and do all the other things that make for successful family movies.

But through it all runs the touching story of an outsider making a new home for himself, and discovering that in the end, whatever our differences, "anyone in London can fit in".

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Paddington Is Proudly Unhip Yet Positively Delightful

Paddington  is absolutely, positively delightful. This big-screen adaptation of Michael Bond’s * classic, adorable children’s-book character — an exceedingly polite, klutzy, talking bear from “darkest Peru” — takes what could have been an easy cash-grab and turns it into a generous, fun, ingenious little comedy. It’s the kind of movie that turns critics like me into advertising copywriters: Go see it! Your kids will love it! Fun for adults and children alike! Et cetera!

I was never well-versed in the Paddington Bear stories, but the outline of the film appears to stick to Bond’s original setup, silly and sad in equal measure. After his habitat is destroyed, our young bear-hero travels from Peru to London, with a suitcase filled with nothing but marmalade, on the advice of his Aunt Lucy, who assures him that the British have a long tradition of taking care of children displaced by war (a reference to both the European  émigrés  who came to England during the war, as well as the British children who became refugees during the Blitz — which was reportedly Bond’s own inspiration for Paddington).

In London, he’s temporarily taken in by the Brown family, who are at first divided over what to do with this well-behaved but horrifically clumsy creature. Dad Henry (Hugh Bonneville), a careful insurance analyst who knows the exact amount of risk involved in everything (“34 percent of pre-breakfast accidents involve bannisters!” he yells at his son as the boy slides down the stairs), is skeptical. However, the always colorfully clad mom Mary (the enchanting Sally Hawkins), a children’s illustrator, loves the idea of having a cute talking bear around. The kids are torn, too: Judy (Madeline Harris) is an easily embarrassed teen and doesn’t want anything to do with the stupid talking bear, while younger Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) is a budding inventor and wannabe-astronaut and wants a playmate.

Looking to find a permanent home for Paddington, the Browns attempt to locate an explorer who had discovered Paddington’s habitat decades ago (and from whom his red hat and love of marmalade comes from). Little do they know, a cruel taxidermist (played by Nicole Kidman, having the time of her life, and sporting an unusually fetching blonde bob) has also become fascinated by this bear, and wants him for her … [ cue ominous music ] …  collection . The plot is all predictable, broad-strokes stuff — I mean, it’s basically  Mary Poppins  meets  E.T.  meets 101 Dalmatians , but with a talking bear — but the inspired comic setpieces set the movie apart. The bear has a penchant for causing any number of rolling, Rube Goldberg–esque calamities, often involving everyday objects (handi-vacs, toilets, skateboards, TV antennas, etc.), and the film’s freewheeling slapstick spirit is fairly irresistible. This kind of elaborate physical humor can be tough to pull off; the graveyards are full of children’s movies that drowned in their own shrill ornamentation. But director Paul King constructs his scenes with expert timing and precision: He deftly dribbles little bits of information about what’s going where, efficiently establishing the right spatial dynamics, then lets us anticipate the catastrophe to come. It all looks effortless, but it’s not. It’s also funny as hell.

Meanwhile, the film’s portrait of London is perched halfway between the modern and the fablelike, a place of huge crowds, imposing buildings, and portentous skies. (Early on, we briefly see the city in a snow globe, and the film seems to have bought into that aesthetic.) It all fits beautifully together. Many adaptations of children’s stories nowadays try too hard to contemporize themselves or to add hefty doses of realism — all in an (oft-misguided) effort to find some edge. But from its black-and-white newsreel opening to its world of dollhouses that transform into real houses, and its color-coded everyday objects that become marvelous sources of both chaos and invention,  Paddington is decidedly, proudly unhip. It’s a lovely, endearing chocolate-box of a movie.

*   The piece originally inaccurately said the creator of the Paddington series was Michael Brown, not Michael Bond.

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Movie Review

Adventures of a Peruvian Immigrant (the Furry Variety)

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By Jeannette Catsoulis

• Jan. 15, 2015

In stark contrast to their furry, blundering star, the makers of “Paddington” have colored so carefully inside the lines that any possibility of surprise or subversion is effectively throttled. Perhaps burdened by an excess of respect for Paddington Bear’s creator, the children’s author Michael Bond , or maybe just unwilling to deter the built-in market for the inevitable movie-related merchandising , the filmmakers have settled on safe.

While going by the books (more than 20 of them since 1958) might reassure their many fans, it’s a disappointingly fainthearted approach to a character who is anything but. Arriving in London as a stowaway from Peru — where a long-ago explorer taught his family to love marmalade and the King’s English — Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) is warily embraced by the Brown family. Mrs. Brown (Sally Hawkins, decked out in amusing hats and old-lady knitwear) looks at him as she might the baby Jesus, but Mr. Brown (Hugh Bonneville, doing his best “Downton Abbey” huffy voice ) regards him mainly as an insurance risk. Their two children, like most of the supporting cast, barely register as more than superficial cameos.

Despite the kid-gloves sensibility, “Paddington” delivers a knockout blend of fluid animation and live action. Erik Wilson’s primary-colored photography zings, painting an ultra-British, storybook city with a serenely vintage feel. (All the nonwhites — except for some Caribbean musicians — seem to be in hiding.) Stringing together a series of mild, bear-in-a-china-shop misadventures, the director, Paul King (who wrote the story with Hamish McColl), honors the books’ gentle spirit with whimsical humor and a genuine sweetness that little ones should respond to.

But the film’s emotions are so carefully calculated that Mr. Brown’s transformation from fuddy-duddy to free spirit — and his sticky kumbaya speech at the end — fail to convince. (Even the lone homoerotic joke feels programmed.) And, as the perfect metaphor for the trials of immigrant assimilation, Paddington could have been given more sophisticated and high-stakes adventures without alienating younger viewers: I doubt that the biggest problem facing British immigrants today is how to negotiate indoor plumbing.

At the same time, what tykes will make of Nicole Kidman, playing an evil taxidermist loaded for bear, is anyone’s guess. Squished into a white outfit and stacked on towering heels like a nurse in a bondage video, Ms. Kidman seems more a bone thrown to teenage boys than the antagonist in a children’s movie. The little girl sitting next to me at a preview screening was baffled.

“Why is she wearing those stupid shoes to climb on the roof?” she wondered. I could have hugged her.

“Paddington” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Ear wax is eaten, nose hair is plucked and a tranquilizer dart is deployed.

Rating information on Friday with a film review of “Paddington” misidentified the film’s rating. It is PG, not PG-13.

How we handle corrections

Opens on Friday Directed by Paul King 1 hour 29 minutes

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‘paddington’: film review.

Ben Whishaw voices Paddington, the brave bear from Darkest Peru, in this new film adaptation of Michael Bond’s much-loved character

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

Contributing Film Critic

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Launched by a much-loved children’s book, A Bear Called Paddington (1958) by Michael Bond , which spawned yet more books, a clutch of TV series of varying quality, and oodles of merchandising, Paddington Bear is not a brand to be messed with lightly. The original stories’ marmalade-flavored, quintessentially British tone of voice and the ursine orphan’s episodic adventures don’t seem immediately feature-friendly given the tales’ lack of superpowers, princesses or stuff blowing up.

Perhaps that’s one reason that the marketing campaign for the new Paddington film, produced by Heyday Films (which created the Harry Potter franchise) got off to such an inauspicious start, with the first trailer in June 2014. The clip quickly spawned Internet memes about the CGI bear’s supposed “creepiness” and much concern from British fans and Anglophiles abroad that the finished product was “in a mess,” to borrow a Bondian description, especially when news broke that Colin Firth had stepped away from the microphone and been replaced by Ben Whishaw as the voice of Paddington.

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To top it all, there’s been an uproar in the British press this week because the film, which opens on Nov. 28 in the U.K. (and Jan. 16 in the U.S.), will have a PG rating instead of the expected U (the U.K. equivalent of a G). Crikey, many thought, what have they done to Paddington?

It’s a relief to report that the final film is actually quite charming, thoughtful and as cuddly as a plush toy, albeit one with a few modern gizmos thrown in. These include a contemporary (if decidedly retro) period setting, an extended narrative arc featuring an invented baddie ( Nicole Kidman ) to add tension, a right-on subtextual message about tolerance, and some winking jokes and allusions only grown-ups will get, like references to Wes Anderson films. All in all, it strikes a judicious balance between honoring the spirit of the original books and servicing the needs of the target demographic. Plus, there’s a scene where Paddington puts his head in a toilet and floods the bathroom. What’s not to like?

Inevitably, the opening stretch gussies up Paddington’s backstory considerably. Where the original book was content to merely tell the reader that our hero was a stowaway on a boat from “Darkest Peru” raised by an aunt now in a home for retired bears, the film shows us this and more. First, a mock newsreel unfolds, telling how Paddington’s Aunt Lucy and Uncle Pastuzo (voiced by Imelda Staunton and Michael Gambon , respectively) met a mysterious British explorer who introduced them, cargo-cult-style, to the wonder that is marmalade and also helpfully left behind a gramophone that taught them English with a received-pronunciation accent.

But years later, by which time their young, orphaned and notably disaster-prone nephew has come to live with Lucy and Pastuzo, the latter is tragically killed in an earthquake and this sets the young bear on his way to London. But at Paddington Station, he finds the locals less welcoming than he’d expected. (Nevertheless, the film is basically one big love letter to the city, and much of it was shot on location.)

Kind-hearted Mrs. Brown ( Sally Hawkins ,  Happy-Go-Lucky , Blue Jasmine ), a children’s book illustrator, takes a shine to the little bear, whom she names after the station. She manages to persuade her stiff-backed insurance-assessor husband Mr. Brown ( Hugh Bonneville , Downton Abbey ) and kids — sulky teen Judy ( Madeleine Harris ) and tween geek Jonathan ( Samuel Joslin ) — to let Paddington move in with them and their elderly relative Mrs. Bird ( Julie Walters ) until he finds somewhere more suitable to stay. The aforementioned plumbing-related disaster soon occurs, followed swiftly by mishaps on a subway escalator, an elaborate chase through Notting Hill involving a skateboard and a double-decker bus, and assorted other hijinks that will tickle younger viewers pink.

Meanwhile, a taxidermist (Kidman) gets wind of Paddington’s presence in the city and determines to acquire him for the collection at the Natural History Museum. To this end, she recruits help from the Browns’ grumpy but randy neighbor Mr. Curry ( Peter Capaldi , Dr. Who ). The two storylines come together satisfyingly for the finale, prompting the requisite neatly packaged message about makeshift families and love conquering all, but done with an admirably light touch.

Indeed, the great achievement of writer-director Paul King , who comes more from a TV comedy ( The Mighty Boosh ) and pop video background and has made only one feature ( Bunny and the Bull , a semi-animated curio), is his ability to work with a broad palette here, in both emotional and technical terms. In between all the knockabout physical humor, there’s a palpable sense of sadness and loss, and a running theme about displacement that evokes variously the evacuation of Jewish children from Germany during World War II, the Afro-Caribbean people who came to Britain in the 1950s and ’60s, and contemporary immigrants, whose presence is a hot-button political issue at the moment. One clever if not terribly original device, for example, has some of the music performed by a five-piece calypso band that at first sounds like it’s part of a non-source soundtrack only for the camera to reveal they are itinerant buskers within the scene itself.

A similar playfulness runs through the movie. A dollhouse in the attic opens up to reveal all the residents of the Brown household, moving from room to room in a way that directly quotes, as does the musician device, any number of Wes Anderson movies, although The Royal Tenenbaums is probably the most resonant reference. Elsewhere, an invisible cut shows the seemingly instantaneous transformation of Mr. Brown from a freewheeling, motorcycle-riding rebel into a Volvo-driving dad on the day his first child is born. The production design by Gary Williamson and costume design by Lindy Hemming similarly straddle the gray area between realism and luridly colored exaggeration.

Performances across the board sing in the same key, with everyone a bit hyped up and overacting just enough to make it fun. Hawkins, whose casting is inspired here, stands out especially and brings a particular poignancy to the party, while Bonneville shows off a comic side he hasn’t been allowed to indulge enough. The “acting” from Paddington himself, or rather the CGI animators at London’s Framestore, is subtle and expressive although some of the fur movement is a little computer-y. Whishaw’s gentle tenor voice has such a touching fragility to it that one wonders how they ever thought anyone else could have done it better.

Production companies: A Studiocanal presentation in association with Anton Capital Entertainment with the participation of Amazon Prime Instant Video of a Heyday Films production Cast:  Ben Whishaw , Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Nicole Kidman, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Matt Lucas, Kayvan Novak, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton Director: Paul King Screenwriters: Paul King, based on a screen story by Hamish McColl and Paul King, “Paddington Bear” created by Michael Bond Producer: David Heyman Executive producers: Rosie Alison, Jeffrey Clifford, Alexandra Ferguson Director of photography: Erik Wilson Production designer: Gary Williamson Costume designer: Lindy Hemming Editor: Mark Everson Music: Nick Urata Casting directors: Nina Gold, Theo Park

No MPAA rating, 95 minutes

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By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Here’s a rare bird, er bear, indeed. Paddington is a family movie that really is for everyone, meaning neither kids nor grown-ups will squirm with boredom. Based on a series of Michael Bond books begun in 1958 and illustrated by Peggy Fortnum, the movie likewise tells the tale of a Peruvian bear, in duffel coat and floppy red hat, adopted by a London family. How satisfying to report that the cinematic Paddington emerges as an irresistible charmbomb that has a nice habit of sneaking up on you instead of conking you on the head.

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Credit writer-director Paul King and  Harry Potter producer David Heyman for guiding this fable to the screen without the usual glossy overkill and goosed-up pyrotechnics. Paddington, voiced with genuine feeling by Ben Whishaw (a substitute for the originally cast Colin Firth), is introduced living the good life in the rainforest. Then, boom-squish, an earthquake hits and Paddington takes a cargo ship to London, where he dreams of a new beginning. Without too much fuss, the bear arrives at Paddington Station and is quickly adopted — at least temporarily — by the Brown family: blustery dad Henry (Hugh Bonneville, on leave from Downton but still very lord of the Abbey), his sweet wife Mary (the pricelessly appealing Sally Hawkins) and their two scrappy, moody children, Judy (Madeleine Harris) and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin). After a few guttural roars, the bear starts talking and in very British tones.

It’s funny. So is Nicole Kidman , very Cruella De Vil as Millicent Clyde, a taxidermist with an eye on adding Paddington to her stuffed collection. It’s an excuse for some chase scenes and physical comedy (Paddington gets his head stuck in a toilet bowl) that manage to suggest both the Marx brothers and Wes Anderson . I mean that as a good thing. The human actors interact playfully with the computer-generated bear, cleverly realized by the animators at London’s Framestore, who worked on Gravity . The in-jokes are verbal and visual, managing to reference themes as diverse as immigration and insider trading without throwing the plot off course. Paddington has no super powers, though he does fly over London, but he does work his way into our hearts and minds. It’s all very droll and quietly, memorably dazzling. “Please Look After This Bear” are the words written on a tag around Paddington’s neck. Smart audiences will do as instructed.

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Paddington review – a bear-hug of a family treat

W hat headline-grabbing scandals have attended the return of Paddington Bear! First, there was his conscious uncoupling from Colin Firth (too old, apparently); next came Nicole Kidman’s announcement that his new movie was too scary for her kids; then outrage as the censors slapped a PG-rating on scenes of innuendo, dangerous behaviour, and extreme marmalade. Now, perhaps most shockingly, comes the revelation that a 21st-century computer-generated big-screen bear can be every bit as endearingly entertaining as his 70s TV stop-motion counterpart. Paddington’s creator, Michael Bond, says he “slept soundly” after seeing the new movie, and those in search of a family-friendly festive film treat will doubtless do the same.

Abandoning darkest Peru after an earthquake, our diminutive hero arrives in London where he proceeds to wreak healing havoc in the home of the Browns; uptight dad Henry (Hugh Bonneville), vivacious mum, Mary (Sally Hawkins), and troubled kids in need of some bear-based bonding. Nicole Kidman’s trigger-happy taxidermist Millicent has other plans, however, seducing creepy neighbour Mr Curry (a splendidly sniffy Peter Capaldi) into helping her steal and stuff the new arrival. It’s terrifically good-hearted fare, painting a colourful portrait of London as a multicultural melting pot with a just a hint of old school Poppins charm.

The jokes are good too, ranging from laugh-out-loud observations about the transformative effects of parenthood (and knowing mentions of “exotic wrestlers”) to slapstick bathroom episodes. Ben Whishaw turns out to be the perfect voice of Paddington (sorry, Colin), his lilting diction at once childlike and wise, his delivery naive yet oddly noble. “Please look after this bear”, says the tag around Paddington’s neck. Rest assured, they have.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Charming story about beloved bear has some scares.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Could spark a conversation about what it means to

It's always important to be polite and help others

Paddington stresses the importance of being polite

An earthquake, some of which is shown, destroys Pa

Mr. Brown gives Mrs. Brown a passionate kiss befor

Language includes "good lord" and "shut your pie h

Product placement includes Oreos and Hoover vacuum

Mrs. Bird distracts a security guard by doing shot

Parents need to know that Paddington is based on the classic children's book by Michael Bond, A Bear Called Paddington . After an earthquake destroys Paddington's home and kills his uncle, the orphan bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) stows away alone on a ship with only his red hat, beat-up suitcase, and…

Educational Value

Could spark a conversation about what it means to be a refugee -- and the importance of taking care of those in need.

Positive Messages

It's always important to be polite and help others. Even though everyone is different, everyone has value and can find a home. Family -- even if it's not traditional family -- is always the most important. Sometimes you have to take chances and be courageous.

Positive Role Models

Paddington stresses the importance of being polite and is always eager to help anyone in need. He gets into mischief but doesn't mean to hurt anyone. Mrs. Brown won't rest until Paddington finds a home. Mr. Brown is overprotective and worries about his family's safety. The villain, Millicent, is cruel and manipulative to get her way.

Violence & Scariness

An earthquake, some of which is shown, destroys Paddington's home and kills his uncle; it's a dark scene and could be scary. Millicent slaps her coworker and works in a spooky museum. She kidnaps, chases, and drugs (with a poison dart) Paddington and threatens to have him stuffed. She also wields sharp implements (hatchet, scalpels, etc.). Paddington inadvertently floods a bathroom, blows up a kitchen, and goes on a high-speed chase. In one scene he narrowly escapes a fire.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Mr. Brown gives Mrs. Brown a passionate kiss before he does something heroic. Mr. Brown disguises himself (badly) as a woman, and a guard flirts with him. Millicent flirts with a neighbor to get to Paddington.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language includes "good lord" and "shut your pie hole." Kids say their dad is "boring and annoying."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Product placement includes Oreos and Hoover vacuum cleaners.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Mrs. Bird distracts a security guard by doing shots of whiskey with him until they're both drunk.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Paddington is based on the classic children's book by Michael Bond, A Bear Called Paddington . After an earthquake destroys Paddington's home and kills his uncle, the orphan bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw ) stows away alone on a ship with only his red hat, beat-up suitcase, and jars of marmalade with him in the hopes that someone will help him once he gets to London. The idea of him taking the journey on his own might worry some children, but he's quickly taken in by the Brown family. Paddington gets into some dangerous mischief -- which might delight some kids and scare/upset others -- including flooding a bathroom, chasing a pickpocket, fleeing a fire, and eventually being kidnapped by a cruel, cold taxidermist ( Nicole Kidman ), who wields a dart gun and sharp implements. The Browns' aunt helps rescue Paddington by doing shots of whisky with a security guard until they're both drunk, and there's a gross-out scene in which Paddington cleans out his ears. Expect some flirting, a passionate kiss between the Browns, and language along the lines of "good lord" and "shut your pie hole." But Paddington is very sweet, polite, and good intentioned, and the Brown family is adorably imperfect. Paddington is charming in many ways and touching in others. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (70)
• Kids say (65)

Based on 70 parent reviews

Traumatizing

What's the story.

At the start of PADDINGTON, an English explorer discovers a family of bears in "Darkest Peru" and tells them to look him up if they ever get to London. Decades later, an earthquake destroys the bears' village and kills a young bear's uncle. His aunt stows him away on a boat with only his red hat (with a sandwich in it), a suitcase, and jars of marmalade. He meets the suspicious Mr. Brown, the kindhearted Mrs. Brown ( Sally Hawkins ), and their two kids at the Paddington train station. So they name him Paddington, and the daring search for the explorer begins. What they don't know is that an evil taxidermist ( Nicole Kidman ) is after Paddington ...

Is It Any Good?

This is a delightful film version of the beloved book by Michael Bond. It opens with newsreel footage of the explorer discovering the lost tribe of bears, and then the sweet, polite Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw ) is sent off after the tragedy that leaves him an orphan, happily finding his new family in London. Bonneville is good as the exasperated and overprotective dad, and Hawkins is adorable as the loving artist mother who takes to Paddington right away.

Paddington takes kids on a fun adventure while also touching on bigger issues. There's a nice moment when Mrs. Brown takes Paddington to see antiques dealer Mr. Gruber (Jim Broadbent). A toy train brings them sweets as Mr. Gruber recalls leaving his own home (fleeing the Nazis) and taking a train to London -- not unlike Paddington. The bigger meaning might be lost on some kids, but stressing good manners, kindness, and compassion to strangers won't. This is a sweet film for young kids, with enough slapstick comedy for older ones and entertainment value for adults, too.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how Paddington set off on his own after the earthquake. Can you think of any similar real-life situations in which kids have been forced to flee because of dangers at home? Is that something that scares you? Parents, reassure kids who might be worried about something like this happening to them.

Mr. Brown's job is about analyzing risk, which leads him to be very protective of his children. Do you think his concern is justified? Kids: Does it bother you when your family won't let you do something because it might be unsafe?

Paddington has very good manners. Do you think it's important to be polite?

How do the characters in Paddington demonstrate courage ? Why is this an important character strength ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : January 16, 2015
• On DVD or streaming : April 28, 2015
• Cast : Nicole Kidman , Hugh Bonneville , Sally Hawkins
• Director : Paul King
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Weinstein Co.
• Genre : Family and Kids
• Topics : Book Characters , Wild Animals
• Character Strengths : Courage
• Run time : 95 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : mild action and rude humor
• Award : Common Sense Selection
• Last updated : April 8, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Paddington 2

2017, Kids & family/Comedy, 1h 43m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Paddington 2 honors its star's rich legacy with a sweet-natured sequel whose adorable visuals are matched by a story perfectly balanced between heartwarming family fare and purely enjoyable all-ages adventure. Read critic reviews

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Paddington 2 videos, paddington 2   photos.

Settled in with the Brown family, Paddington the bear is a popular member of the community who spreads joy and marmalade wherever he goes. One fine day, he spots a pop-up book in an antique shop -- the perfect present for his beloved aunt's 100th birthday. When a thief steals the prized book, Paddington embarks on an epic quest to unmask the culprit before Aunt Lucy's big celebration.

Rating: PG (Some Action|Mild Rude Humor)

Genre: Kids & family, Comedy, Adventure

Original Language: English (United Kingdom)

Director: Paul King

Producer: David Heyman

Writer: Paul King , Simon Farnaby

Release Date (Theaters): Jan 12, 2018  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Mar 6, 2018

Box Office (Gross USA): $38.4M

Runtime: 1h 43m

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co: Heyday Films, Anton Capital Entertainment

Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos

Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

Cast & Crew

Ben Whishaw

Paddington Voice

Phoenix Buchanan

Sally Hawkins

Hugh Bonneville

Henry Brown

Brendan Gleeson

Knuckles McGinty

Julie Walters

Jim Broadbent

Samuel Joslin

Jonathan Brown

Madeleine Harris

Peter Capaldi

Judge Gerald Biggleswade

Joanna Lumley

Felicity Fanshawe

Imelda Staunton

Aunt Lucy Voice

Michael Gambon

Uncle Pastuzo Voice

Sanjeev Bhaskar

Eileen Atkins

Madame Kozlova

Noah Taylor

Screenwriter

Simon Farnaby

Bob Weinstein

Executive Producer

David Glasser

Ron Halpern

Didier Lupfer

Alexandra Derbyshire

Rosie Alison

Jeffrey Clifford

David Heyman

Erik Wilson

Cinematographer

Mark Everson

Film Editing

Jonathan Amos

Dario Marianelli

Original Music

Gary Williamson

Production Design

Patrick Rolfe

Supervising Art Direction

Gareth Cousins

Art Director

James Price

Andrea Borland

News & Interviews for Paddington 2

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Critic Reviews for Paddington 2

Audience reviews for paddington 2.

I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed the first Paddington and almost as surprised again by how much this one lived up to it as a sequel.

Adorable and charming with beautiful production design. Kids should get a real kick out of it, adults should still appreciate the love that went into this and the cast obviously having a great time. The train showdown is almost Mission-Impossible-worthy.

Even better than the first with a sweet funny and magical story which ably entertains on two levels for kids and adults. Hugh Grant almost steals the show and the rest of the cast is perfectly cast. A very good family movie! 05-18-2018

As delightful as the first one with the added bonus of Hugh Grant's terrific villain.

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Paddington [2014] Review: A Sweet-Natured & Warm-Hearted Delight For All

A sweet-natured, warm-hearted & wonderfully witted delight for viewers of all ages, Paddington brings a beloved children’s literature to cinematic life without losing any of its essence, innocence or charm, and makes for an endlessly enjoyable & wholly satisfying cinematic experience for both children & grown-ups.

Written & directed by Paul King, the story packs plenty of heart and exudes nothing but fuzzy warmth & indelible charm from start to finish. There is a childlike simplicity to it, a pleasing quality to all elements, and even London is captured with a dollop of romance. Sprinkled with healthy dose of humour, there are several amusing moments in store for both kids & adults.

Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters & two kids are excellent as the kindly Brown family while Ben Whishaw provides both voice & soul to the eponymous bear that is mostly a CGI creation. But it’s Nicole Kidman who stands out as the museum taxidermist. Both Jim Broadbent & Peter Capaldi also chip in with good support. The warm colour tones & bright lighting radiate nothing but positivity all around. And the tight editing & swift pace make sure the interest never fizzles out.

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Cinema is my life capsule. Horror is my refuge. Jurassic Park is first love. Lord of the Rings is perfection. Spielberg is GOAT. Cameron is King. In Nolan I trust. Pixar makes my heart sing. Reviewing films is a force of habit. Letterboxd is home. Blog is where I'm currently inactive. HoF just happened to came along.

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