Paddington Brown (voiced by Ben Whishaw) is an upstanding bear with a heart the size of London. He's pure of soul, understanding, inclusive, honest and earnest, someone who puts his loved ones before himself each and every time. The wonderful sequel he is in, "Paddington 2," is the kind of hopeful film this strife-filled world needs right about now. Writer-director Paul King and co-writer Simon Farnaby have followed up 2014's equally warm "Paddington" with another morsel of cozy jubilance. Late author Michael Bond, he of the classic children's books from which this film series is based, would have a reason to be proud.
Paddington is content and cared for, living happily in Windsor Gardens with the human Brown family: parents Henry (Hugh Bonneville) and Mary (Sally Hawkins), daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris), and son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin). His Aunt Lucy's (voiced by Imelda Staunton) 100th birthday is coming up, and he wants nothing more than to earn the money to buy her a valuable pop-up book of London—the very place where the Peru-based Lucy always dreamed of visiting. What Paddington does not know is that this particular book, long thought lost, hides a clue on each page collectively leading to a hidden treasure. When slippery, egotistical fading actor Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant) learns of the book's whereabouts, he vows to snatch it for himself. Cue a grave misunderstanding which tears Paddington away from the worried Browns, his very freedom in jeopardy unless the lot of them can clear his name.
See Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com. for full review
