After the first film grossed $268m worldwide its clear the world loves Paddington bear and wants another and sure enough the sequel ‘Paddington 2’ is out on November 10th in the UK and we were lucky enough to have been invited along to watch a preview of some of the film. With a live band playing songs from the film it was then the turn of Hugh Bonneville along with two of the producers to introduce four scenes from the film to give us a taster of what we can look forward to.
The first scene we saw was in shop with Paddington pottering about looking for a present for his Aunt Lucy with the shop owner, Jim Broadbent, with a comically mangled cod German accent. The scene seques into a wonderful animated sequence of Aunt Lucy arriving on an ocean liner and met on the dock by Paddington. The camera swirls around them and he shows her round London the edit points are cleverly covered as the animated page turns of a book.
The second scene is set at a fair ground as Hugh Bonneville’s character and his wife along with their children, Paddington and Julie Walters as their grandmother walk round the fair before watching Hugh Grant as a washed up vain and hammy actor addressing the crowds as he goes about switching on the lights of the fair. Paddington is invited up on stage and Grant as Paddington unwittingly humiliates him.
The third scene finds Paddington in prison and in charge of the laundry which ends with disastrous results for him and all the other inmates clothing. Paddington, embarrassed about his mistake sits down for a breakfast with the rest of the disgruntled prisoners and eat their awful tasting porridge. Paddington is coerced into complaining to the chef who is another fearsome looking prisoner called Knuckles played by Brendan Gleeson who doesn’t take kindly to his cooking being criticised.
The fourth and last scene finds Hugh Bonneville and his on screen wife snooping round Hugh Grant’s house who happens to be his neighbour as they look for a precious book and find something unexpected in his attic. The vain actor returns home before they’re able to leave and he confronts them about what they are up to in his house.
In all the scenes were charming and funny and from what we’ve seen it looks like it’s packed with a lot of star turns by famous British actors with Hugh Grant getting the role that’s likely to contend with the loveable bear in terms of scene stealing. Some of the shots of Paddington were not finished so he was occasionally fur-less but from what we’ve seen the film looks to be another winner
