Paddington is a 2014 comedy film, directed
by Paul King and written by King and Hamish McColl and produced by David
Heyman. The film is based on Paddington Bear by Michael Bond. The film stars
Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi and
Nicole Kidman, with Ben Whishaw as the voice of Paddington. The film was
released in the UK
A young bear originally from Peru with a passion for all things British
travels to London
Directed by Paul
King
Produced by David
Heyman
Screenplay by
Paul King
Hamish McColl
Based on Paddington
Bear
by Michael Bond
Starring
Hugh Bonneville
Sally Hawkins
Julie Walters
Jim Broadbent
Peter Capaldi
Nicole Kidman
Ben Whishaw
Music by Nick
Urata
Cinematography Erik Wilson
Edited by Mark
Everson
Production
company
Heyday Films
StudioCanal
Distributed by StudioCanal
Release dates
28 November 2014
Running time 95 minutes
Country
Language English
Budget $50–55
million
Homicidally ever after: did Paddington really need a
murderer?
Megalomaniacs, murdering
ice queens, deadly robo-cats … why are nice fluffy kids’ films such as
Paddington and Postman Pat being overrun by violent villains? Nicholas Barber
can’t bear to watch
Nicholas Barber
The Guardian, Monday 10 November 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/10/kids-films-villains-paddington
The new trailer for the imminent Paddington
Bear film may have upset the purists among us – it’s all a bit too Harry Potter
for my liking – but in general it’s fairly faithful to Michael Bond’s original
bear-out-of-water stories. There’s the battered suitcase and the floppy hat.
There’s the Brown family and their grumpy neighbour. There’s Paddington’s knack
for making a mess and causing a kerfuffle. There’s the ice queen who’s scheming
to kill him and display his taxidermicised hide in the Natural History Museum.
And there’s the … waaaaiiiit a minute. I may not have read every one of Bond’s
books, but I’m pretty sure that the trailer’s peroxide Cruella de Vil
impersonator, as played by Nicole Kidman, has strutted in from a different
franchise altogether.
We shouldn’t be too surprised. Just as
films based on British sitcoms always pack their characters off on a sunshine
holiday, no one seems capable of putting an innocent children’s programme on
the big screen without turning it into a borderline horror movie. Earlier this
year, Postman Pat: The Movie took a fluffy television series about rural
village niceness and added in the one element that it had always lacked: a
megalomaniac who planned to conquer the world with his army of cybermen. And in
2005, The Magic Roundabout film had Dougal and his chums racing to stop an evil
wizard bringing about a new ice age with the aid of his skeleton henchmen. It
was almost inevitable, then, that Paddington would be landed with a
bloodthirsty nemesis, too. But it’s still as depressing as a mouldy marmalade
sandwich.
I admit, I have a personal stake in this:
my six-year-old daughter is probably the planet’s most squeamish film-watcher.
She refuses point blank to sit through scenes of extreme danger or cruelty, so
our viewing options are severely limited. Snow White is out. Sleeping Beauty is
out. Finding Nemo was a never-to-be-repeated disaster. The Jungle Book is
tolerable as long as we fast-forward past the Shere Khan bits. And Frozen is a
favourite because it doesn’t include a typically gothic Disney villain – one
reason, I suspect, why it’s now the highest-grossing cartoon ever released. But
beyond those … well, think of the last film you saw that was aimed at small
children, and the chances are that the characters were almost stabbed,
poisoned, melted, or eaten by dinosaurs.
It’s a rule of thumb that goes back to
Bambi’s mother being shot by hunters. Actually, it goes right back to the days
when no fairytale was complete without someone being blinded or shut in an
oven. We’ve always been keen, it seems, on children’s stories that traumatise
their target audience. But maybe it’s time for a change. I’ve heard the
fashionable academic argument that these macabre narratives prepare youngsters
for the fear and grief that await them in later life. But I’m not convinced
that the makers of the Postman Pat movie ever had such noble goals in mind when
they threw in a homicidal robo-cat with laser-beam eyes. I’m not convinced,
either, that the most valuable lesson that our offspring can learn is: “The
people you love will die.” They’ll learn it soon enough, anyway, and, when that
day comes, it’s not going to be any less painful because they’ve seen Finding
Nemo. Wouldn’t it be more helpful to teach them some slightly cheerier lessons?
How about, “You can be adventurous without putting yourself in mortal danger”
or, “Life can be thrilling even if you’re not being menaced by a criminal
mastermind”? In the meantime, shoving some death and destruction into a kids’
film is simply the laziest, least imaginative way of padding it out. And
Paddington does not need padding.
I’m not saying that nerve-shredding terror
doesn’t have its place in toddlers’ entertainment – perish the thought – and I
accept that not every child is as pathetically wimpy as mine. But I’m sure that
there must be some other wusses of her age out there. Don’t they deserve to see
Paddington without the whole thing turning darker than darkest Peru
Perhaps we could introduce a quota – say,
one children’s film which doesn’t feature a murderous psychopath for every two
which do. After all, there are countless grown-up comedies which don’t put
their characters in life-threatening peril, so it seems perverse that there are
so few of them for pre-teens. Besides, children’s television manages to
enthrall and delight its viewers without making them blub their eyes out. Trust
me, I watch it for hours and hours and hours every week. But as much as I
treasure the time spent with my daughter in front of Old Jack’s Boat and Abney
& Teal, I still wish we could watch the odd film together, too.
• Paddington is out on 28 November.
Paddington review
– a bear-hug of a family treat
Ben
Whishaw proves the perfect voice for a CGI Paddington as endearing as the old
70s favourite
Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
The
Observer, Sunday 30 November 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/30/paddington-review-bear-hug-family-treat
What 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 London
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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