Paul King
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Connections, in both directions
He is enmeshed in a series of cogs, as Chaplin was in “ Modern Times ” (1936), and the homage that King pays to Wes Anderson, not least to the jailbreak in “ The Grand Budapest Hotel ” (2014), is positively slavish.
Paddington 2 exhibits its bona fides as a film for all ages with subtle nods to Modern Times (a Chaplin-esque mustache), The Untouchables (a line about bringing a knife to a gunfight), and the overproduced musicals of the ‘30s (Busby Berkeley would have been proud) alongside the more obvious kid-friendly elements.
Cineastes will delight in the witty homage (Paddington's prison break incorporates a marvellous nod to Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times ).
When it comes to comedy, Paddington 2 draws inspiration from Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, both who gets nods in this with allusions to The General and Modern Times.
Other inventive bits include an equally accident-ridden window-washing gig, a prison break that features an homage to Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, and a climactic train chase that's equal parts humorous and thrilling.
Mary Poppins (1964)
Directed by Robert Stevenson
influenced Paddington (2014)
Plot Characters Visuals
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.
Paddington (nicely rendered in CGI) is taken in by the Brown family (which may remind more mature viewers of the Banks clan in “ Mary Poppins ”), over the objections of Mr. Brown ( Hugh Bonneville ), a somewhat officious risk analyst.
Sally Hawkins plays the kindly Mrs. Brown, Hugh Bonneville her joyless husband (a role akin to George Banks in "Mary Poppins") and the great Julie Walters sauces up the role of Mrs. Bird, the family's housekeeper.
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.
One location calls to mind the elaborate, dazzling interiors of the Harry Potter films without feeling out of place or breaking things; the rest of the movie presents a comfortable and clean London, recalling the obviously set-bound Mary Poppins both in its stagey artifice and its appropriate softness.
In writer-director King's film, the adoptive human family Paddington finds is played by Hugh Bonneville (Mr. Brown, here a stuffy risk analyst recalling Mr. Banks of "Mary Poppins"), Sally Hawkins (Mrs.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Directed by Tom Gormican
influenced by Paddington 2 (2017)
The pair cry while watching Paddington 2 , trip on LSD, and yet still become suspicious, even dangerous, to one another, until their misaligned conceptions right themselves.
For a while, Unbearable coasts along on this life-imitating-art-chopping-up-life-for-laughs vibe, giving Cage and Pascal the chance to make a warped, goofy buddy comedy involving dropping acid, tooling around Spain’s coast in a sports car, working on possible screenplay ideas, and bonding over the healing power of Paddington 2. There’s a meaty take on the rabbit holes of fame and the wormholes of fandom slithering just beneath the surface, as well as some brain-tickling ideas about the way that a movie star’s legacy and persona(e) can become a prison.
The two form a genuine connection over movies, from Dr. Caligari to the beauty of Paddington 2.
Everything seems peachy and the two eventually bond over their love of, all things, “Paddington 2” and a hankering to collaborate on a character-driven adult drama, but that’s interrupted by Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) and Martin (Ike Barinholtz), two CIA agents trying to infiltrate Javi and his inner circle.
This premise serves adequately as a structuring device, despite such smart-pants sour notes as a riff from the “Mission Impossible” theme during one of Millicent’s more acrobatic wicked deeds.
There are cartoonish action sequences that knowingly borrow from the likes of the “Mission, Impossible” pictures.
But of course the Brown family—including live-in relative Mrs. Bird (Julie Waters), a neat-freak old biddy who correctly diagnoses the problems in the household that Paddington has been instrumental in solving—come to the rescue (cue echoes of “Mission: Impossible”), bonding in the process.
(Do we really need to hear the "Mission Impossible" theme during a daring museum break-in?
She's an uninspired villain who feels airlifted from a "Mission: Impossible" knockoff — a very discordant tone to pair with old-school British storybook charm.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Directed by Wes Anderson
influenced Paddington 2 (2017)
Visuals Plot
There are even certain moments where the comic timing, color scheme and set design harkens to Wes Anderson, specifically The Grand Budapest Hotel with the pink color scheme in Paddington 2’s prison set.
What if they had extensive prison sequences (seemingly) inspired by a subplot in “The Grand Budapest Hotel“?
There’s a jailbreak straight out of Wes Anderson and “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” a somewhat protracted chase sequence set aboard a train, and an end-credits sequence featuring Grant and a “Prisoners of Love”-type chorus performing an unlikely Sondheim song (“Listen to the Rain on the Roof,” from “Follies”) as a finale.
He is enmeshed in a series of cogs, as Chaplin was in “ Modern Times ” (1936), and the homage that King pays to Wes Anderson, not least to the jailbreak in “ The Grand Budapest Hotel ” (2014), is positively slavish.
And a prison break-out that equals The Grand Budapest Hotel?
The stuff in the prison feels like it was pulled out of some Wes Anderson stylishly imaginative fever-dream, the whole section a mad cross of Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel .
What Paddington 2 demonstrates is that in the currently messed-up and hectic world we currently live in, we need films like this to remind us how we need something loving to make our lives endearing, akin to the warm message of It's a Wonderful Life.
(There are movie references galore here, from "The Lone Ranger" and "It's a Wonderful Life" to the silents of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton) It is Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins), here more than ever the human equivalent of Aunt Lucy, who deduces that the pop-up book is a treasure map and that the multiple strange sightings at Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Serpentine in Hyde Park are one man in disguise.
Mostly, the film — with its giant breakaway dollhouse-like set (which might have been inspired by Julien Temple’s 1986 film Absolute Beginners) and its gadgets and Rube Goldberg designed gags — has a distinctly Anderson vibe to it.
Paddington starts out with a black-and-white newsreel back story reminiscent of “Up,” and then borrows liberally from “101 Dalmatians.”
The film takes its first cues from Pixar's Up , setting its stage with an old newsreel of a British explorer, Montgomery Clyde (Tim Downie), leading the first-ever expedition to Darkest Peru (the best example I can give of where the film's sense of humor lies is to point out the unblinking way that no character ever, ever refers to the country as just "Peru", anywhere in the film).
One can also spot some connections to Pete Docter and Bob Peterson’s animated Up (2009) with its adventurer travelogue newsreel footage.
That opening segment is shown in old b&w newsreel footage style, which immediately lets us know that this is a movie that's been made every bit as much for adults as for children (Pixar's "Up" comes to mind).
The film opens with a clever, and "Up"-echoing faux sepia-toned serial, as an explorer (Tim Downie) ventures to darkest Peru, encountering a rare family of bears, helping to teach them English, and giving them a taste for marmalade sandwiches before returning to London, telling them they'll always have a warm welcome if they ever come to visit.
When it comes to comedy, Paddington 2 draws inspiration from Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, both who gets nods in this with allusions to The General and Modern Times.
Even when he unveils the Brown household in a dollhouse-like manner that recalls similar gags in Jerry Lewis's The Ladies Man and Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou , Paddington recalls its stylistic forbears at their best: flowing with whimsy, but never at the expense of the beating heart of its human (and animal) characters.
So, yes, there are familiar elements here -- from children's-lit and children's-film classics as varied as 101 Dalmatians, Stuart Little, and Winnie the Pooh, but there's also a broad-and-bizarre stroke of Monty Python-style absurdity and more than a few welcome, modernized-yet-classical touches like a calypso band, D Lime, acting as a chorus to the film's urban adventuring.
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.
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.
The sort of pandering that children’s films are often prone to—the ear-toothbrush sequence in the first movie, for instance—has largely been replaced by jokes that are charming for charming’s sake, and the references, which range from Chaplin’s City Lights to Sondheim’s Follies , are lovely even if the specifics may fly over younger viewers’ heads.
He's made himself a popular and well liked member of the community in way that reminded me a little of Bill Murray in the last reel of Groundhog Day.
That ranges from using some tree themed wallpaper in the Browns' household to represent the place and mood of the story at any moment, to fun little bits of homage to past movies ranging from "Singin' in the Rain" to "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Directed by Wes Anderson
influenced Paddington (2014), Paddington 2 (2017)
Visuals
Some of his visuals are even cribbed from the Wes Anderson playbook, as a dollhouse sequence mirrors a device from Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom.
Imaginative production design, which occasionally brings to mind Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, adds to the story's appeal.
Indeed, if the man behind Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel had a British counterpart, it'd be Paddington director Paul King.
The stuff in the prison feels like it was pulled out of some Wes Anderson stylishly imaginative fever-dream, the whole section a mad cross of Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel .
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Directed by Wes Anderson
influenced Paddington (2014), Paddington 2 (2017)
Visuals Themes
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.
Ultimately, the rush for Paddington to get out of jail is a merry one and cores the film – think Grand Illusion meets The Great Race by way of Looney Tunes and The Royal Tenenbaums, with a PG rating and loads of pink for good measure.
Certainly there is a degree of action/peril as the Browns head off to and try and rescue Paddington from danger at the Natural History Museum (also an excuse for a great location, probably not used as well since the 1975 classic One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing), but is all played for gambolling laughs.
That ranges from using some tree themed wallpaper in the Browns' household to represent the place and mood of the story at any moment, to fun little bits of homage to past movies ranging from "Singin' in the Rain" to "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
Meanwhile, sleazy private investigator Fletcher (Hugh Grant, “Paddington 2”) is attempting to blackmail Mickey and company.
To return to Grant, it’s tough to imagine a time where he seemed to be having more fun – save for his BAFTA-nominated turn in Paddington 2, of course – and he is just the charming scumbag anchor this film desperately needed.
Similar to the work he has delivered recently in diverse roles found in Paddington 2 , A Very English Scandal , and Florence Foster Jenkins, he captures the complexity, depth, and personality in a character other actors would play safe, gloss over and ignore.
That said, I hasten to add that if you have time to watch only one film in which Grant plays an unabashed scoundrel, you should really make it “Paddington 2,” even if you have already seen it.
Following his villainous turn in “ Paddington 2 ” that had some calling for an Oscar nomination, Hugh Grant’s “filthy fantasist” delivers a 90-min prologue that grows more entertaining as the minutes tread on.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Directed by Wes Anderson
influenced Paddington (2014)
Visuals
Even when he unveils the Brown household in a dollhouse-like manner that recalls similar gags in Jerry Lewis's The Ladies Man and Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou , Paddington recalls its stylistic forbears at their best: flowing with whimsy, but never at the expense of the beating heart of its human (and animal) characters.