When I first heard that Paddington Bear, a beloved figure of children’s literature, was being brought to the big screen in Paddington, I wasn’t entirely opposed to the concept. After all, Michael Bond’s Paddington books don’t hold the same sway that they used to, and introducing the adorable bear of the title to a new generation seemed like a promising idea. Then, on the heels of two images for the film (and the hilarious Creepy Paddington meme that quickly followed), the first trailer hit the web.
The results, I’m afraid, are quite disheartening. Instead of the cute and adventurous character I remember from Bond’s book, this Paddington sticks toothbrushes in his ears, begins to eat the earwax that he pulls out of them, dunks his head in a toilet, floods a bathroom and then gets stuck in a turnstile. Paddington is beginning to look like the horrific Alvin and the Chipmunks and Smurfs movies that every critic has nightmares about. What a pity.
Paddington opens December 25th.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Adapted from Michael Bond’s beloved books, Paddington follows the comic misadventures of a polite young bear with an endearing talent for comic chaos.
Paddington has grown up deep in the Peruvian jungle with his Aunt Lucy who, inspired by a chance encounter with an English explorer, has raised her nephew to dream of an exciting life in London. When an earthquake destroys their home, Aunt Lucy decides to smuggle her young nephew on board a boat bound for England, in search of a better life. Arriving alone at Paddington Station, Paddington soon finds that city life is not all he had imagined – until he meets the kindly Brown family, who find him with a label tied around his neck which reads ‘Please look after this bear. Thank you.’ They offer him a temporary home whilst he searches for the explorer who impressed Aunt Lucy all those years before.
But when Paddington catches the eye of a sinister, seductive taxidermist, it isn’t long before his home – and very existence – is under threat …
