Life Is Unbearable

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I remember playing in a park when I was a child, when a friend casually dropped her pants and took a shit on the ground. I don't know what game she thought we were playing but it made finding her during 'hide and seek' a hell of a lot easier. Her public dumping seemed odd at the time, except since then the rest of the world seems to have turned to shit too, and so what the hell difference does one extra turd make? At one point during Paddington 2, Julie Walters' character declares that “all actors are evil”... She only says that too because she saw an actor trying to steal something. Wait until she gets backstage with Kevin Spacey; then she'll see what they're really capable of. As I write this now, the comedian Louis C.K. has just had to issue an apology for forcing women to watch him wank off, because the entertainment industry apparently only hires rapists, perverts, or Piers fucking Morgan. Over here in Britain, we're shooting ourselves in the cock with a little project called Brexit that allowed xenophobes to pretend that they actually have a deep and complex understanding of the economy. Oh and let's not forget the game show host in the White House that's attempting to start a nuclear war over Twitter to compensate for the fact that the only thing lower than his I.Q. is his droopy old-man balls.

With all of this seemingly endless misery around us, Paddington 2 is like a breath of oxygen in a room dense with farts. In fact, the film is so joyful and heartwarming that it should be listed as a fucking gateway drug because when they fuck am I ever going to be as happy as I was whilst watching it again? Maybe if I went back and watched it whilst eating a marmalade sandwich? And then again if I watched it after getting all giggly having smoked some cannabis? That all sounds nice, doesn't it? Cut to a few months down the line though and suddenly the only way to feel even close to 'good' is when you're watching the little bear get up to his mischief as you cover yourself in vomit after injecting heroin straight into your own fucking eyeballs. I don't know if you've seen the first Paddington movie but that in itself was probably one of the best kids movies since Mary Poppins. Asking a filmmaker to repeat and improve that quality would be like watching somebody spin straw into gold and then expecting them to do it again, but with only Trumps scraggly fucking pubic hair to work with. Somehow it seems that they have actually managed it with Paddington 2 though, with this sequel being the Empire Strikes Back of kids movies... because it's a sequel that improves on the original, I mean... Not because they've added an extra bit of incest to it.

The film essentially tells the story of how Paddington is wrongly accused of stealing an old book from Jim Broadbent's antiques shop. The shop's alarm is triggered causing the police to turn up with several cars and a van in order to catch the culprit. Although, fuck me, you can tell this is a fantasy version of London... In London, the police only normally turn up if you've got a knife, and even then it's because it didn't originally belong to you until somebody left it lodged in your fucking neck. If the police had a report that somebody the size of a small bear had stolen a book then I think they'd just be relieved that some fucking youth was actually trying to educate themselves. During the subsequent court case, Jim Broadbent passionately declares that, like everybody else who knows Paddington, he refuses to believe that the little bear is actually guilty. He's still pressing charges though, it seems. I'm pretty sure that considering it's both his shop that was broken into and his book that was stolen that if he really didn't believe Paddington was responsible then he could have the matter dropped and allow the bear to solve the case himself. But “fuck it”, I guess he thought, “watching my friend get sent down is a fun day out”. Not only that but ten fucking years that poor little bear gets sentenced to for supposedly stealing a book. That's more than the actor Rip Torn got for the time he drank his body weight in booze before accidentally breaking into a bank with a gun after confusing it with his own house.

Throughout this whole time, we as an audience know that the actual thief is a local and failing actor as played by Hugh Grant. And I have to say that I don't think that Hugh Grant has actually ever been better than he is here. In the way that his character exaggerates his success whilst displaying an over the top and obviously fake charm, it's as though he's found Harry Potter's Gilderoy Lockhart, clubbed him to death, cremated the body, and then snorted the fucking ashes. In fact I don't think that Grant has had this much fun since he was caught nuts deep in a prostitute back in the mid-90's. He's also the reason that this film is slightly better than the first. It's not that he makes a better villain than Nicole Kidman originally did.. although he definitely does. It's more that his character's story is better integrated into the overall story than hers was. In the last film, we saw Paddington acclimatising himself to life in our country and there was Nicole Kidman trying to kill him. However this time, Paddington's jail time situation and Hugh Grant's evil plan are intrinsically linked. Although for a split second I did worry that the message of the movie was a little downbeat... In the way that Paddington is framed for a crime due to his desire to earn money and the fact that Grant's criminal plan is as a result of his career having dried up, it's as though the movie is telling us that honest people can go suck a dick for all their efforts are worth. 
 

Except this isn't the case, obviously. Not in the world of Paddington anyway. Paddington 2 is a film of optimism in which, like a viable Brexit plan, the word cynicism quite literally doesn't exist. As the story progresses it becomes more apparent that the real message is that we should look for the best in each other and prioritise kindness over everything else. In this grim bitch of a world in which Trump tweets for war, and Theresa May's loose grip on her job is about as disgusting as Louis C.K.'s tight grip on his own shrivelled ginger cock, it seems that Paddington 2 is the film we need. Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi recently came under some criticism from a bunch of online fuckwits that didn't approve of the comedic direction in which he took his franchise to which he responded, “Agreed. The world is too hilarious right now. There's too much laughter in real life for a movie to be fun. Down with happiness!” And obviously he has a point. The first Paddington movie was released around the time of the Syrian refugee crises and told us that we should treat immigrants with compassion. Rather than learn from this however, we seem to have descended even further to the point that the film is now just trying to get us to look for the best in any fucking human. I do know that Paddington isn't real but we literally don't fucking deserve that bear. 

Paddington himself is a creature of unlimited kindness and despite having once been accused by an ex-girlfriend of not having one, every single thing that the furry fucker does quite literally melts my stupid fucking heart. This sequel is funny, charming, and in one sequence, borderline devastating. I won't ruin too much except to say that after a fairly stress free ninety minutes the film then goes full Casino Royale on us in a sequence that was more traumatising than most horror movies. Kind of like if Toy Story had concluded with Woody stripping Buzz naked, tying him to a seatless chair and then whacking him in the bollocks until he agreed that he's not really Andy's new favourite toy. Like that. Except you know.. slightly less inappropriate. Not that this is a criticism obviously. Everything gets resolved quickly enough and I doubt too many children will one day be describing the scene to their therapist. In fact, it's a compliment that a children's film can illicit so much worry from some cynical, closed-minded prick such as myself. At this point, a third Paddington film has been confirmed and assuming it at least retains its director Paul King then I can't wait. I have no idea what fucking state the world will be in by the time it's due for release. I suspect I'll be living in a fallout shelter, in an immigrant-free and poverty-stricken Britain, as I allow celebrities to jizz on me for money... but either way I know I'll be ready for more Paddington and I can't wait. Thanks for reading and see you next time motherfuckers.