Category: Childrens

The Wild Robot

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.2/5)The Wild Robot

Rated: PG

Written and Directed by: Chris Sanders

Based on: ‘The Wild Robot’ Novel by Peter Brown

Produced by: Jeff Hermann

Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Kit Connor and Stephanie Hsu, with Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames.

‘Funny how life works.’

Opening on a dark and stormy beach, otters sniffing the sand discover a crashed robot.

Meet, ready-to-receive-my-first-task ROZZUM unit 7134 (Lupita Nyong’o).

A ROZZUM AKA Roz always completes its task, just ask.

The Wild Robot analyses life through the lens of a robot’s eyes that has all sorts of fun and weird and wonderful moments including physical mimicry of Roz running around trying to find instruction from a bunch of wild beasts that are terrified of it.

Eventually, Roz the robot saves a goose egg from a conniving fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal).  And watching the egg hatch, as nature instructs, the gosling imprints on the robot.

Roz, now has a task (along with the help of Fink): to raise a gosling, later named Brightbill (Kit Connor), so he’s ready to migrate before winter sets in.

There’s so much to love about this movie, the critters all adorable, not one character out of place.

There’s the family of possums where all the young possums are taught to play dead (well, possum), each explaining the type of death therefore undoing the subterfuge because, ‘dead things don’t have to explain they’re dead.’

When I saw the premise of the film I thought it was a strange idea having a robot in the forest and at best would be cheesy, but the story leans into the pre-programmed robot that can’t feel anything contrasted with the wildlife that are in constant fear of being eaten.

The film doesn’t shy away from the reality of nature, instinct a different type of programming designed to keep animals fed or to flee to stay alive.

Afterall, ‘Death’s proximity makes life burn all the more brighter.’

Then there’s Brightbill that adopts Roz as his mother, snuggling up to the unfeeling metal, that brightens pink lights as a mechanical response to love.

It’s sweet seeing this robot become an unlikely mother with all the difficulty that goes with the ‘crushing obligation.’

There’s a real, flying the nest storyline that plucks the heartstrings but then there’s so much more to the story as Roz shows the forest creatures that kindness is a survival skill.

And that overriding programming can ultimately lead to a better survival.

This is a genuinely funny and heartwarming film that’s good fun for all ages.

 

The Bad Guys

Rated: PGThe Bad Guys

Directed by: Pierre Perifel

Based on: The Scholastic book series by Aaron Blabey

Produced by: Damon Ross and Rebecca Huntley

Executive Producers: Aaron Blabey, Etan Cohen and Patrick Hughes

Starring: Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina, Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Lilly Singh and Alex Borstein.

‘We may be bad but we’re so good at it.’  Meet, The Big Bad Wolf (Sam Rockwell).

Mr. Wolf is part of The Bad Guys – a gang of villains who just love being bad and stealing stuff.

There’s Mr. Snake (Marc Maron): a master like Houdini at opening a safe… without hands…

Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), AKA Wizz: an eight-legged hacker;

Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson): a master of disguise, ‘I’m a destruction worker.’

And Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) – he’s crazy and farts when nervous.

Natural selection has handed The Bad Guys the card of being feared – everyone’s terrified of them, so why not be bad?!

When Governor Foxington (Zazie Beetz) calls the gang out on TV as being sad and needing to fill a hole in their being with money which is never going to work because they just want to be loved… Mr. Wolf sees red and decides it’s time to steal the ultimate bad guy prize: The Golden Dolphin.  A trophy given to the one citizen who’s done the most good.

Meet: Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade).  A guinea pig and therefore nicknamed, ‘Pig’.  He’s Mr. Snakes favourite food.

The storyline is setup as a heist movie for kids.  And not just because of the animation (DreamWorks excelling again with their detail in fur). But because of all the lame dad jokes.

‘You’re good at this.’

‘I’m kind of a natural.  Learned mostly from YouTube.’

There are some predictable twists in the plot with underlying main message of there’s ‘a flower of goodness in everyone, just waiting to blossom’.

But the tone of the film as a caper, with split screens and jaunty soundtrack, reminiscent of an Ocean’s movie, felt twee.

I know, a kid’s movie.  But the, ‘One of these days their luck is gonna run out,’ and the meteor falling to earth that Pig/Prof sees as a heart, naw, yet The Bad Guys see as a butt… Well, that actually was pretty funny.

And the, naw does get turned on its head.

It just wasn’t surprising.

The attempt of being edgy and diabolical made the film less edgy.

I liked the characters and the fact, Mr. Wolf can taste the air and hear colour.  But the lines of the characters didn’t always land making, The Bad Guys an OK watch but nothing over exciting.

Lassie Come Home

Rated: PGLassie Come Home

Directed by: Hanno Olderdissen

Screenplay: Jane Ainscough

Produced by: Henning Ferber

Starring: Niko Marischka, Bella Bading, Sebastian Bezzel, Anna Maria Mühe, Matthias Habich.

When I think of Lassie, I think of a dog who knew too much. Way too much. Previous Lassies would bail up the villains, almost before they’d managed to commit the crime. Whereas Florian Maurer’s Lassie, possibly due to her intensely close bond with the boy, shares many of the personality traits of her 12 year old partner in crime.

Lassie is both a mischievous bundle of fur and an exceptional athlete with her go button stuck on high. She never walks when she can run but, mostly, Lassie careens around as if powered by a secret jet pack. So, it is not surprising when the landlady’s bag of groceries is knocked flying as Lassie tears down a narrow staircase or she leaves an elegant trail of paw prints when she bounds across some freshly painted road markings. It is this overflowing exuberance that sees her banished from the apartment where her human family have recently taken up residence.

With the landlady waving the lease and refusing to budge, her family must find Lassie a new home. At least temporarily. Fortunately they are friendly with Graf von Sprengel, the dog-loving owner of a grand country manor. Flo and Lassie are desolate at their separation, even though they will be living within in walking distance of each other. That is, until Graf needs to travel to an island in the North Sea to sell his summer home.

It’s from here that Lassie races off. When one of the hired hands attempts to mistreat her, Lassie sees her chance to bolt. It is the beginning of a series of adventures for both dog and boy as they vainly try to reunite. And, since she’s the only one with a phone so they can follow Lassie’s progress as it is captured and posted on social media, Graf’s 12 year old granddaughter Cilla joins the chase too.

As a dog of many talents, Lassie is well equipped for such an odyssey. It turns out that she is not only an expert at hitching rides and stowing away, but she’s a sausage snavelling fiend and an accomplished circus performer. And in true Lassie style, she can sniff out friend from foe at 20 paces.

As the film has been dubbed from the original German, there is in some places a slight disjunction between the emotion a character is displaying and the shape of their words, but this is a minor consideration. Not only is the cinematography gorgeous and the scenery stunning, the film has been well cast: from Flo and Cilla who are more like real children and not the overly earnest characters of previous generations to Bandit the Scottish Collie who plays his starring role with aplomb.

Rather than a dog who knows too much, Lassie is a headstrong creature with her own methods of solving problems. Since she doesn’t bite, Lassie frequently achieves her ends with some well-timed barking. A lot of barking. Lassie is still very much a super dog, but in a more doggy way.

With the focus of this film on friendship, and no awkward lectures on doing the right thing, I could just sit back and enjoy the pandemonium.

POKÉMON Detective Pikachu

Rated: PGPOKÉMON Detective Pikachu

Directed by: Rob Letterman

Story by: Dan Hernandez & Benji Samit and Nicole Perlman

Screenplay by: Dan Hernandez & Benji Samit and Rob Letterman and Derek Connolly

Based on: the “Detective Pikachu” video game developed by Creatures Inc.

Produced by: Mary Parent and Cale Boyter

Starring:  Ryan Reynolds, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Rita Ora, Ken Watanabe and Bill Nighy.

Based on the worldwide phenomenon of, Pokémon and video game, “Detective Pikachu”, this film literally features the beloved Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) wearing a detective hat.

Tim Goodman (Justice Smith, whom you’ll remember from, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)) lost his ambition to become a Pokémon Trainer when his mother died and his father, Detective Harry Goodman, moved away to Ryme City; a place where Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy) has created a city, not just with Pokémon living in it, but with humans and Pokémon working and living, side-by-side.

After finding out his father has gone missing, Tim travels to Ryme City to discover there’s more to his father’s past than he realised.

Junior journalist, Lucy (Kathryn Newton), with a nose for a good story, seeks the answers to Detective Goodman’s disappearance, only to find Tim without a Pokémon partner – ‘Why does everyone keep asking me that!’.

When a Pikachu appears in his father’s apartment, instead of the characteristic Pokémon stating their own name, like, “Psy-Duck.  PSY-Duck?”  Or in this case, “Pika Pika” – Tim can understand this mysterious Pikachu: this  little guy is talkative, coffee addicted and a self-proclaimed detective.

So the somewhat lonely 21-year-old (not so much with Pikachu dancing on this shoulder), nosey journalist and talkative Pokémon investigate the mystery surrounding Tim’s father.

POKÉMON Detective Pikachu is a combination of animated puppets and live actors – the Pokémon critters brought to life so you just want to reach out and give Pikachu’s fur a scratch, setting his back-leg twitching.

The kids in the audience, ooo’d and ahh’d, particularly at the beginning and introduction into the world of Pokémon (and before the action ramped up): this is a kid movie.

I don’t know why I expected the humour to be more adult.  Probably because Ryan Reynolds does the voice-over of Pikachu.  And although the script doesn’t have that edgy satire I’ve grown used to from Reynold’s characters, this is brilliant casting as he voices some genuinely funny moments like Pikachu making decisions based on ‘feeling it in his jellies.’

There are many amusing moments like the Cubone baby with the bad temper reminding Tim’s best mate Jake (Karan Soni) – would have like more of this character in the film – of his mother.  But the jokes were more of the PG variety: cute and sweet.

The action and effects ramp-up as the story progresses, giving the film some suspense and creating some drama with the hope Pikachu and his human, Tim, make it out of yet another scape.  And we get the conflict between Tim and his father with the breakdown of their relationship after his mother died, and of course the romance between the two human investigators.

So, not the edgy clever I was hoping for, but we get the expected cuteness with some good laughs and action along the way.

Smallfoot

Rated: GSmallfoot

Directed by: Karey Kirkpatrick

Screenplay: Karey Kirkpatrick and Clare Sera

Screen Story by: John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Karey Kirkpatrick

Based on the book: Yeti Tracks, by Sergio Pablos

Produced by: Bonne Radford, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Starring: Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, Common, LeBron James, Danny DeVito, Gina Rodriguez, Yara Shahidi, Ely Henry and Jimmy Tatro.

The only thing stronger than fear is curiosity.

Living above the clouds on the peak of a snowy mountain, a yeti named Migo (Channing Tatum) has been waiting to train to be like his dad and become a head-butting, gong ringer to call the sun-snail to bring the light of the sky every morning.

That’s what the stones say, and the Stonekeeper (Common) is always reminding the yeti tribe that below the clouds is the Big Nothing.

So when Migo is launched in training, only to miss the gong and be flung outside the yeti community, he’s as shocked as the human when he finds a smallfoot, as the smallfoot human is to find a yeti.

Disappearing from view and leaving no trace, his father and the rest of the village can’t believe Migo found a smallfoot.  Except the SES (Smallfoot Evidentiary Society).

Meechee (Zendaya) and her SES gang, Kolka (Gina Rodriguez), Gwangi (LeBron James), Fleem (Ely Henry) and Cali believe not just in the smallfoot, but that there’s far more out there then the stones have led them to believe.

On their research expedition into the Big Nothing they find Percy, a smallfoot with a career as a wildlife expert; a celebrity made famous by making a TV series that’s about to be cancelled because of a dwindling audience.  Percy will do anything to get his face out there.  Including faking a yeti sighting.  So, when he actually finds a yeti and the yeti finds a smallfoot, they’re both terrified and fascinated.

There’s this, ‘curiosity killed the yak’ theme versus the search for truth being more important than all else.

Which I felt dangerous for a young audience – to go out there searching for the truth no matter what.  I had an understanding for the want to lie to protect… which adds that needed obstacle to overcome in the film, giving the story a bit of grit.

The safety of the yeti and the threat of murder felt a little serious with nutty mountain goats and pink Snuffleupagus look-a-likes needed to soften the vibe of the film.

I just didn’t find the film very funny.

And I think some of the seriousness of the film may have been confronting for a really young audience.

Visually, the artwork and animation was smooth and beautifully put together with realistic fur and chase scenes seen from above like watching a game of Pacman.

But the story didn’t really work for me.  It wasn’t until the film got close to the end that I started to appreciate what the film was trying to achieve.

Mostly, I felt mildly uncomfortable with too many teachable moments for my taste.

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

Rated: PGTeen Titans Go! To The Movies

Directed by: Peter Rida Michail and Aaron Horvath

Screenplay by: Michael Jelenic & Aaron Horvath

Based on characters from: DC Comics

Produced by: Michael Jelenic, Aaron Horvath, Peter Rida Michail and Peggy Regan

Starring: Greg Cipes, Scott Menville, Khary Payton, Tara Strong and Hynden Walch with Will Arnett and Kristen Bell.

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies is filled with satire and exclamations in large-as-life bold capitalised statements of… Things!

Based on the characters from the animated TV series we have Robin (Scott Menville), forever the side-kick (of Batman) and his team of super-powered friends: Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), Cyborg (Khary Payton), Raven (Tara Strong) and Starfire (Hynden Walch).

But forever the joke of the super-hero community, their fart-jokes and constant breaking into song means they’ll never get a movie made about them – not like the Justice League:

‘Superman’s a national treasure!’

Even Alfred’s getting a film Coming Broom.

And the Bat-mobile.

And Batman’s utility belt.

So, the Titans embark on a mission to travel back in time to wipe out all the super-hero origins so they’ll be the only ones left to make a movie about.

There’s the importance of friends and loyalty and team, overcoming pride and ego to self-acceptance… bla, bla, bla…

But just when I thought the film was going to get cheesy and turn into a kid-musical, the teddy singing the super up-beat song about life, gets run over!

It’s not easy reviewing kid-animation; this is not my usual film to watch.  And I have to say first impressions of stari-eyed Starfire with her constant mangled sentences like, ‘that is more like the it’ and the classic-style animation got me yawning at times.

But what I also found was that I had a grin and was smirking with some laugh-out-loud moments – that catch phrase from Robin is hilarious: ‘Crack an egg on it: Ka Kaar!’

Dripping with sarcasm there were jokes for kids but also jokes for adults, ‘Kids, don’t forget to ask your parents where babies are made!’.

So, although I wasn’t blown away by the animation, I was amused at the jokes (some too mature for really young kids who had more fun laughing at fart jokes and the Titans imitating Lois Lane over the phone to superman) – and the plot came full circle as well.

It’s all about making fun of the super-hero genre – a welcome change while being surprisingly clever.

Show Dogs

Rated: PGShow Dogs

Directed by:  Raja Gosnell

Screenplay by: Max Botkin and Marc Hyman

Produced by: Deepak Nayar and Philip Von Alvensleben

Co-Produced by: Paul Sarony

Executive Produced: by Tom Ortenberg, Nik Bower, Raja Gosnell, Max Botkin, Scott Lambert, Kassee Whiting, Yu-Fai Suen, Robert Norris, and Norman Merry

Starring: Will Arnett, Natasha Lyonne

Voiced by: Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jordin Sparks, Stanley Tucci, Shaquille O’Neal,  Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Alan Cummings, RuPaul Persphone, Anders Holm, Kate Micucci and Blake Anderson.

It’s school holiday time which means it’s time for some silliness at the cinema.

Show Dogs is no exception complete with talking dogs including Max the NYPD Rottweiler loner police dog who’s, ‘Good at taking a bite out of crime.’

And his human partner, Federal Agent Frank Mosley (Will Arnett) who does his best to keep up with his four-legged friend without ‘mounting him’.

Puns proliferate as the dynamic duo search for baby panda Ling-Li stolen from his mother by an animal smuggling ring, to be sold at the Canini Invitational Dog Show in Las Vegas where all the glitz and glamour of the best dogs in the world are shown by the equally competitive and glitzy handlers.

To track the smugglers and find Ling-Li, garbage eater and proud toilet drinker Max must be entered into the competition by the clueless Frank.

Without help from special canine consultant Mattie Smith (Natasha Lyonne), a professional dog handler and groomer, along with a disgraced and abandoned aging Papillon, once known as ‘Philippe De Fabulous’ for being a three-time world champion Show Dog, the-one-who-bites (AKA, Max) and the-one-who-doesn’t-know-where-he’ll-be-bitten-next (FBI agent, Frank), doesn’t stand a chance.

Show Dogs

Director Raja Gosnell takes us back to the family-fun times of live-action movies, which is rare these days with most kid-movies’ animation.  So, I was expecting some big-time silliness escaping a dreary winter Sunday afternoon: talking dogs – tick!  Silly?  Not silly enough!

I realise I’m not the targeted audience but there was an undercurrent of serious in Show Dog, a holding back I didn’t expect.

I’m not saying the film wasn’t light-hearted, with dogs wearing sunglasses and pigeons getting, well, ‘pigeon bumps’.

But there was a forced moral to the story kinda thrown in with Max re-writing what it is to be a Show Dog while learning to trust people who see the world a different way.

Being such a fan of his character in Arrested Development I expected more humour from human Frank, played by Will Arnett.  Yet, he was more reserved here with the focus on the dog Max who wasn’t a funny character, more the, I-listen-to hip-hop, take-me-serious, character.

The humour didn’t always hit the mark but jez the panda was cute, and yes, I’m one of those people who don’t own a dog but get down to the dog park whenever I can to hang out and be entertained by their pure delight of running, smelling and fetching.  And the director here explains, “the only things we’re doing in post-production, in terms of the dog’s performance, is eyebrows and mouth and a few eye shapes. The rest is 100% the dog’s performance.”

Not my cup-of-tea but tolerable to take the kids for an outing.

Sherlock Gnomes

Rated: GSherlock Gnomes

Directed by: John Stevenson

Screenplay by: Ben Zazove

Produced by: David Furnish, Steve Hamilton Shaw, Carolyn Soper

Executive Producer: Elton John

Voices provided by: Emily Blunt (Juliet), Johnny Depp (Sherlock Gnomes), James McAvoy (Gnomeo), Michael Caine (Lord Redbrick), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Dr Watson), Maggie Smith (Lady Blueberry).

 

With a vocal cast of A-grade actors most other films can only dream about, those entertaining garden gnomes are back in a sequel to the 2011 animated comedy Gnomeo and Juliet, which borrowed freely from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

 

Sherlock Gnomes, the 3D computer-animated comedy sequel, you guessed it, uses a lot of the ideas and characters from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic crime sleuth Sherlock Holmes, along with his partner Dr Watson and nemesis Professor Moriarty, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of garden gnomes.

 

Since the first film the gnomes have been forced to relocate to a new garden in London, where Juliet is so focused on getting everything sorted out or tidied that she has little time for Gnomeo, who tries to keep the romance alive in their relationship.

 

This situation helps to emphasise the importance of not taking what you have for granted, with Gnomeo and Juliet’s relationship subtly mirroring that of Sherlock and Watson, although the latter relationship is not romantic but more a partnership based on friendship and intellect. It takes a major threat to make Sherlock appreciate Watson’s equal contribution to their crime-solving escapades.

 

Adults accompanying their children don’t miss out entirely on being entertained, as there are plenty of references throughout the film to classic Sherlock Holmes stories and characters, not that the mostly young audience will be aware of this!

 

While this film has a fairly straight forward plot, what distinguishes it from other animated fare is the way it doesn’t dumb down the clues, which are quite complicated for Sherlock Holmes to figure out, ensuring audiences are kept engaged and guessing throughout its entirety.

 

Children will be entertained by the colourful and varied inanimate objects that come to life, and how they interact with each other. The backgrounds are beautifully realised and the animation of the characters is suitably cartoonish as one would expect. The film is quite fast-paced and seems to cram a lot of action, plot and subsidiary characters into its running time, so at least it doesn’t drag.

 

The catchy soundtrack music is provided by Sir Elton John, the executive producer, who also sings some of the songs, along with other artists who do cover versions from some of his extensive catalogue.

 

I haven’t seen the first film, but I gathered from my young companion’s comments that unlike Gnomeo and Juliet, which was apparently light and fun with some nice puns and an entertaining supporting cast, Sherlock Gnomes is darker, with less use of the supporting cast from the previous film and more focus on solving the crime, fixing mistakes and renewing relationships that are endangered. Younger viewers may find some of the scenes slightly scary, such as those involving the gargoyles (which look large and menacing but whose personalities balance out their appearance) or Moriarty’s penchant for destroying garden ornaments (although this is never done on screen).

 

While this film is obviously aimed at a young audience, the presence of such skilled vocal talent, along with lots of sly references to Sherlock Holmes, will hopefully ensure that adults will be entertained as well and not feel punished by having to sit through this animated offering.

 

The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature

Rated: GThe Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature

Director and Co-Writer: Cal Brunker

Producer and Co-Writer: Bob Barlen

Screenwriters: Scott Bindley, Cal Brunker, Bob Barlen

Producers: Harry Linden, Jongsoo Kim, Youngki Lee, Li Li Ma, Jonghan Kim, Bob Barlen

Starring: Will Arnett, Maya Rudolph, Katherine Heigl, Jackie Chan, Bobby Moynihan, Gabriel Iglesias, Bobby Cannavale, Jeff Dunham, Peter Stormare and Isabela Moner.

Cal Brunker wanted to make A Nut Job 2, Nutty by Nature, bigger and more fun so he took the most loved elements of the first movie and mixed nuts and drama with the deft flick of an artist’s eye to bring to life a little band of insurgent parkland animals, a corrupt greedy human oppressor -and turn it into a visually stunning action packed sequel.

 Stuffed on a fast food supply of nuts from the abandoned basement of Nibbler’s Nut Shop, Surly and his animal friends Andie (Katherine Heigl), stray pug Precious (Maya Rudolph) Buddy (Tom Kenn) live happy, lazy and fat in nut luxury without a survival worry in the world.

Nut feasts of every kind are just one furry paw breath away from the hunter gatherers. But their lifestyle of easy pickings ends explosively one night as the nut shop comes tumbling down in a gas explosion.

Unbeknownst to the animals their survival problems are just beginning.

Surly discovers that the local Mayor, a corrupt self-serving meanie Mayor Muldoon (Bobby Moynihan), plans to get rich by bulldozing their beloved Liberty Park and ripping it apart turning it into a hellish carnival ground full of decrepit rides bought on the cheap.

The animals strike back when they team up with some muscle in the adorable fluff ball form of a tough city mouse and Kung Fu master Mr. Feng and his army of displaced mice. Mr Feng has one outstanding flaw, he absolutely loses it when you call him cute.

Mayor Muldoon brutally enlists pest exterminators to exterminate Surly and his friends. Mayor Muldoon has a pint-sized weapon of his own, his daughter Heather – an armed brat with psychopathic urges, a tranquillizer gun and itching trigger finger.

Heather delights in doing horribly wrong things to animals if she can just get her hands on them.

All appears lost as the animal’s face hunger, homelessness and destruction by a predator they are not equipped to battle

What can go wrong is what makes this film so right for its target audience.

A simple movie with big themes: inclusion, diversity, unity, purpose and quest and we we’re cheering the little guy all the way.

Cal Brunker injects the drama with ever higher stakes with the completely unexpected plot twist of my favourite character, Surly’s best friend a non-speaking rescue rat named Buddy (Tom Kenny).

In his scraggly body Buddy the silent heroic outsider captured my heart as he faces off against the destructive power of corrupt human greed.

Nut Job 2, Nutty by Nature is a thrilling ride with unexpected plot twists.  At one moment I sat misty eyed with shock in the cinema with my 11-year-old daughter, My thought at that moment was, ‘this can’t happen in a kid’s movie!’

As I watched this movie with my daughter I was given the gift of escaping into the movie with the eyes of a child.

My daughter loved A Nut Job 2, Nutty by Nature.

The Nut Job 2 draws you into an enormous canvas of animated movie magic. There is enough colour breathing escapism, relentless slapstick smiling animal chaos and rocket fueled action married with characters we care about that makes Nut Job 2 a perfect school holiday movie.

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Paddington 2

Rated: GPaddington 2

Directed by: Paul King

Produced by: David Heyman

Written by: Paul King and Simon Farnaby

‘Paddington Bear’ created by: Michael Bond

Starring: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi with Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw as the voice of Paddington.

Sans nephew and not having seen the original Paddington (2014) – well, only bits on the cable TV that I caught watching with a patient at (my other life) work; both of us agreeing the film looking surprisingly good and Paddington The Bear textured and lovely: I wasn’t sure what to expect with Paddington 2.

But when a premier ends with applause from the audience and finding a grin on my face with added moments of laughing-out-loud, you know you’re on to a winner.

‘Stop that stunning sister!’ Yells Barry (Simon Farnaby – also co-writer!), the vice deputy security guard of St Paul’s Cathedral, as the villain-of-many-disguises, Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant) escapes capture disguised as a nun.

There’s something about that British humour here that just tickles.  And Hugh Grant cast as the has-been actor (now famous for starring in dog commercials) is hilarious.

Paddington 2

Paddington 2 is the sequel to the hugely successful 2014 Paddington – a world wide hit and the most successful non-US family film of all time.

Based on the children’s books written by Michael Bond, Paddington 2 is a fitting tribute to Bond who passed away this year aged 91.

Producer David Heyman has re-united the Paddington team with Paul King at the forefront as director and co-writer – and they’ve all brought their A-game.

From the delightful costumes from designer Lindy Hemming (seriously, I spent half the movie laughing at Phoenix-the-villain’s outfits, socks pulled to knees over breeches included) to the intricacies of the set surprising and clever (production designer Gary Williamson) reminiscent of the Harry Potter movies but with the bright lights of a carnival and a jail shown like a stage set with the jungle of Peru growing through the floor boards.

And of course, Paddington – the texture of his fur making him appear so realistic.Paddington 2

Yet, the story did have glaring holes that is so incredibly un-realistic with the movie about Paddington unjustly being incarcerated for stealing a pop-up book from an antique store for 10 years: really?!

But this is a kid’s movie and when the pop-up book rises to fill the screen and to have Paddington running through the scenes of the book’s pages, any thought of unreality is overwhelmed with wonder.

And there’s some beautiful characters here – the film isn’t all about Paddington.

There’s Knuckles McGinty (Brendan Gleeson a personal favourite actor of mine), the shaggy dog, the Brown family and the neighbours living on the same street who all have their own story, used not just as a backstory for Paddington, but to also circle back into the film making each character worthwhile and needed giving that satisfying feeling of completeness while adding a layer to the themes of acceptance and finding the good in everyone you meet.

I’m still grinning replaying the moments, even if I’m not a fan of marmalade.

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