Paddington

Paddington was a huge part of my childhood. I had just always hoped that no one was going to mess with him and turn him into a film star or anything. Suppose you can’t have everything. At least he’s no longer going to have Colin Firth’s voice, which really would have been too much.

Initially the plot is good, they haven’t strayed from the whole family finding a talking teddy bear in a train station idea which is good and they’ve added a clever back story in Darkest Peru as well. As a Paddington aficionado I didn’t expect to like that but I did.

When an earthquake destroys their idyllic life in Darkest Peru, Paddington (Ben Whishaw) stows away on a boat bound for London whilst his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) heads for the notorious Home for Retired Bears.

Then he is rescued from Paddington railway station by the Browns (Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville) and moves in at 32 Windows Gardens, where Mrs Bird (Julie Walters) is the housekeeper and next door is the legendary Mr Curry (Peter Capaldi). So far so good. He is introduced to Mr Gruber (Jim Broadbent) at his antique shop on the Portobello Road, presumably they have elevenses, and his first attempt at having a bath is predictably a disaster. 

Which is where things start to go a bit awry. Paddington seems to have an out of body experience as he virtually destroys the Brown's home. They may not have messed so much with Paddington himself but maybe they have with his mind.

Paddington himself is excellent. His expressions and mannerisms are spot on, an unfailingly polite bear at heart, although only one hard stare all film is a bit unrealistic. 

Then there’s all this palaver with Millicent the taxidermist (Nicole Kidman) who is determined to stuff the bear and put him in a glass box at the Natural History Museum. What’s that all about and why? Pointless and unnecessary. For some reason there is always an urge to turn every film into an action movie. Kidman herself seems to have misread the script as she looks and behaves more like a dominatrix than a taxidermist and I haven’t even mentioned Hugh Bonneville’s cross dressing. Then again, what’s Christmas without a touch of pantomime?

Still, it’s an excellent effort in bringing Paddington into the 21st century, whether he wanted to be in the 21st century or not and there are many references to Michael Bond's books for those who are paying attention.

Arthur Christmas

We take our seats for Arthur Christmas, an Aardman production, which turns out to be informative stuff. It appears that the title ‘Santa Claus’ is actually a sort of hereditary peerage handed down from father to son. The current incumbent of the title is Malcolm Christmas (Jim Broadbent) who was passed the title from his father, the now retired Grand Santa (Bill Nighy). Malcolm is expected to retire this year to hand over the ‘reigns’ (ha ha ha) to his eldest Steve (Hugh Laurie). Steve is the smart arse currently in charge of the North Pole Command Centre that tracks the Santa ‘project’ across the world. Meanwhile his younger son Arthur (James McAvoy) can only look on in wonder, from the post room to where he has been banished, as he's accident waiting to happen.

Christmas night is now a high-tech military operation involving thousands of elves and a giant spaceship in order to get millions of presents delivered in one night. Now it all makes sense at last.

This year’s operation at first appears to be a great success and much to Steve’s annoyance, with Mrs. Santa (Imelda Staunton) by his side, Malcolm postpones his retirement. All though is not as it appears, one child has been missed and their present, a new bike, remains undelivered.

Steve refuses to attempt to deliver the missing gift being more than happy to accept that one minor blip has occurred in his operation, one present out of millions, not a bad ratio. So it is left to Arthur and Grand Santa, assisted by Bryony (Ashley Jensen), the elf from the Wrapping Department, to go on a renegade delivery mission using the olden day methods of sleigh and reindeers (albeit ones on drugs, they snort magic fumes to power them through the sky). All to ensure that one little girl is not the child Santa forgot.

The idea behind the film is original, fun and very creative, at first. The film loses its way badly in the middle third of the film where too much mayhem ensues as our ‘heroes’ get repeatedly lost and into many sticky situations. It cheapens a great idea and feels extraneous.

Eventually, perhaps half an hour too late, we meander our way to the expected heart warming finale that eventually just about saves the film. Good stuff but should have been better.