Caffeinated Clint
Like an exhausted, bespectacled valedictorian on Prom night, ”Paddington” isn’t as unappealingly “stuffed” as one might expect, in fact, it rises to the occasion and is full of surprises.
A good, wholesome family film – that, let’s be honest, nobody expected would be worth bothering with – Director Paul King’s take on the toy fave is a charming British comedy cloaked in the Marmalade-filled hat of a CGI kiddies movie.
The film tells of a young (CGI) bear, Paddington (voiced by Ben Wishaw), who leaves his home in Darkest Peru for bustling London. It’s there that he encounters the Brown family, and thanks to the kindess of mother Mary (Sally Hawkins), lands himself some ‘temporary’ living quarters. While on the hunt for a permanent home for the polite but clumsy bear, a blonde-bobbed taxidermist (Nicole Kidman) hatches a plan to kidnap Paddington, so she can add him to her collection.
Staffed with wonderful thesps like Nicole Kidman and Julie Walters, and featuring a Pixar-perfect script, it’s a movie with more : In this instance, a message about opening one’s heart (and in this case, door) to refugees and immigrants, and becoming a more enriched person as a result of it.
