Paddington

[stuartboy]

Wow! This ticks all the boxes. Amazing animation. Great casting. Great fun. Dollops and dollops of nostalgia. A plot AND a story. Brilliant and original special effects. My only gripe? I could have sat and watched this for several more hours.

Don't remember Mrs Bird ever having a Scottish accent, and Mr Curry (Dr Capaldi) had lost his! Maybe Julie Walters and he bumped into each other in the corridor at casting and they switched voices.
Lord Downton was perfect as Mr Brown. I wonder if that was a Triumph BONNEVILLE motorbike he wS seen riding on in flashback? It was a Triumph.

Highly recommend this as an ideal family film. Heaps better than Pudsey or those damn Turtles.

9/10

Loved it.

[prettyxcool]

Doors opened at 9.50am instead of 9.30am for the fun and games in the foyer at Odeon Holloway, luckily just as I arrived, while others were waiting outside in the cold and rain.

The fun and games consisted of balloons already blown, and some colouring pencils and colouring sheets on a table and face painting, which we almost missed! Not sure the balloons were a good idea as they were popping extremely loudly during the film! It did add to the atmosphere I supposed, 4D!

As we waited for the screening room to be opened, lovely to meet up with ejwrank, david and sister, funthing, missgotty and vealster.

So glad they were using Screen 6, it has a really big screen and the front row of the Premiere Seats has double leg room, and a great view wherever you sat. This is so much better than the tiny Screen 3 or the pokey 7 and 8 in the depths of the cinema!

Paddington is just adorable. Great family film, heartwarming, fun and whimsical. Gentle humour, but I was also touched with a tear or two in my eyes, very moving too. Beautiful live action, lovely cast, and spot the stars, even Dr Who is in it and a red telephone box rather than his tardis! Did anyone else spot the writer's cameo?

A magical film just in time for Christmas.

It got a round of applause even before it ended!

10/10

[yogi]

Ditto, I agree with everything written above, destined to be a family favourite for many years to come.

9/10

[stuartboy]

I spotted Michael Bond in the end credits, but I have to admit that I had thought he had passed away years ago! I must be confusing him with the actor who narrated the original TV show.

[Beate]

Balloons weren't allowed in the screening room at Greenwich. It still made for a noisy screening! Film was ok but only gently funny. Some nice ideas like "in 200 metres bear left" or the "found" bit of the "lost and found" sign above Paddington lighting up when Sally Hawkins spoke to him.

Otherwise not really remarkable. 7/10

[kevinknapman]

At a surprisingly not that packed Odeon Kingston this morning (I guess the weather didn't help. Though that fitted the film quite well as it was an especially wet depiction of London). Quite a few kids there but thankfully well-behaved throughout.

So despite all the odds of it turning out to be a crass commercialisation of a quintessentially British story and after some worrying trailers that only strengthened that fear, Paddington turns out to be one of the most surprising films of the year.

A wonderfully funny and delightfully inventive family film. Any worry that Mighty Boosh/Bunny and the Bull director Paul King's idiosyncratic quirks might be stifled in a larger more commercial project is unfounded as this is a joy to look at. Lots and lots of wonderful visual gags complemented the action. The Wes Anderson-like cutaway of the Brown's house was a particular highlight.

A great cast helps too with Ben Whishaw providing a perfect voice for the titular character (no offence to Colin Firth but I can't imagine anyone else in that role) and Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi and Nicole Kidman offering fine support. Some excellent cameos too from the likes of Matt 'Super Hans' King, Alice Lowe, Steve Oram, Simon Farnaby and even Paddington creator Michael Bond himself.

It also opens up the real possibility that if you hang around a London train station long enough you could end up being adopted by Sally Hawkins. And what finer recommendation could there be.

[ejwrank]

We also had our worries that they might try to Disney-ise/commercialise the lovely Paddington stories but we really enjoyed this. For a change they put it in a decent screening room at Holloway and there was plenty of room as the rain may have deterred some from turning out. We were glad we went and even spotted our neighbour and friend in the film who had the line "No, I'm Marjorie Clyde." Spotted Michael Bond in his cameo and I just found a book at Oxfam called Paddington Here and Now from 2008 with "brand new adventures of the bear from Darkest Peru". It was Michael Hordern who narrated the TV series back in the 1980s, stuartboy.

Glad to meet vealster and missgotty and to see prettyx and funthing and her mum there.

[Noorjahapatel]

We loved it. Such a heart warming movie. A great cast! I'm glad I didn't watch any trailers so the whole film was quite a surprise! Quite a bit of 'product placement'!

Definitely lol funny. Very entertaining. I would definitely recommend this to everyone I know. Better than I was expecting.

I did at one point say, I thought Paddington ate honey and was soon corrected that was Winnie the pooh (I'm not so clued up on children's stories :-)). Worth a watch and on a big screen!

[David]

I loved Paddington as well. A really well told story with some strong themes, performances and distinctiveness.

http://moviefilmreviews.co.uk/2014/11/2 ... addington/

[akh43]

I loved this movie, it was all I was hoping for and more After I saw the trailer before Imitation Game I really wanted to see this and did wonder whether all the best bits were in the trailer, as often happens, but this film was great from start to finish. I did see Michael Bond's name in the credits, but I had no idea what he looked like so wasnt sure which was him. I have just read a sequel is in the pipeline. My only confusion was the warning at the beginning - “dangerous behaviour, mild threat, mild sex innuendo and mild bad language.” still not sure what this referred to 9/10 from me perfect Sunday morning movie.