Yesterday we went to the cinema to watch Paddington. All in all it was fun. The animated bear is quite remarkable, the special effects are great and the camera work is superb. Its a beautiful film and it makes children laugh and features one of my favourite songs London is the place for me. Except... It has very little to do with our beloved national character and despite a great team of well accomplished and popular English actors, it leaves a sour feeling of being made primarily for the US audience. Theres no doubt that its creators have seen Paddington Bear and Paddington Station visually and even attempted to read Michael Bonds book (probably only the first one) but despite the similarities of English and American languages, its clear that they are presently quite unrelated to each other... And who needs Michael Bonds stories anyway when the Hollywoods audience is raised on James Bond stories. As a result, - and from hereon you may consider this post a spoiler and stop reading if you are going to watch this film in a cinema and want to form a rather independent judgement of it - we have a dramatic story of a bear refugee from the third world who, following his narrow escape from an apocalyptic natural disaster (with some splendid special effects!), finds himself hunted across London by a certain Milicent Clyde who is in fact a replicated Cruella de Ville from 101 Dalmatians and is obsessed with an idea of stuffing him for the Natural History Museum (portrayed as the most evil place in London! Hardly a good publicity!). Other incredible (as in non-believable) bits include the size of the Brown family house in modern London, the Reform Club turned into something from Harry Potter movies, a weirdly shaped Royal Mail van and the Jewish accent of Mr Gruber... Apart from that, its a beautiful film :) youtu.be/soXMqlGM6LQ
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 22:41:01 +0000
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