Paddington 2

And this week's Friday night movie has been... Paddington 2!

Original image located here. Accessed 30th December 2022

I saw the original back in 2020 - and as I recall, thoroughly enjoyed - so seeing this was pretty much inevitable.

It may be easy to dismiss this movie as more of the same but personally, as it worked so well the first time around that is by no means a bad thing. Considering that the trick of 'kids movie adults can watch without their kids' is a very difficult one to pull it off, that they managed to do it a second time around is a damn near miracle. It is funny, heart-warming, never once condescending and the cast are clearly having an absolute ball. Needless to say, I don't know what the creative team behind this did to have to pull out something this consistently good but it's worked gangbusters.

And it's always nice to end this year on a positive note. So thank you, dear reader, for joining me on this year's clutch of weekly movies and I hope to speak to you again on the other side of 2023

Paddington

And this week's Friday night movie has been... Paddington!

Original image located here. Accessed 31st July 2020

Being a child of the eighties, I grew up in an era where the movies for children were some real hardcore stuff (ie Never-ending Story and Labyrinth). But when the nineties rolled around, movies aimed at families tended to be weak, lacking in bite and a struggle for adults to sit through. Thus, it is only in recent years that this stigmata against 'family' movies are now turning around and the audience aren't being  treated as idiots. And Paddington, it would appear, is one such example.

As i have yet to sire children, this enables me to judge this movie from outside it's family demo-graph and see if it stands on it's own two feet. And what do you know, it succeeds admirably. This movie is very funny, complete with a British sense of humour, and is surprisingly touching. Also seeing Sally Hawkins, Peter Capaldi and Nicole Kidman in this is hilarious to me.
Having seen this movie, along with the How to Train Your Dragon series and the Pixar stable, it seems to me that filmmakers are aiming for an approach of 'family movie that adults can watch without their kids'. If that is the case then more of the same please.