(MENAFN- Arab Times) LOS ANGELES Nov 20 (Agencies): 'No bears were harmed in the making of this film' boast the closing credits of 'Paddington' and happily that promise extends to Michael Bond's ursine literary creation. Fifty-six years after first appearing in print the accident-prone Peruvian furball is brought to high-tech but thoroughly endearing life in this bright breezy and oh-so-British family romp from writer-director Paul King and super-producer David Heyman. Affectionately honoring the everyday quirks of Bond's stories while subtly updating their middle-class London milieu King's film may divide loyal Paddingtophiles with its high-stakes caper plot but their enraptured kids won't care a whit. If Paddington's signature line 'I think I'm in trouble again' is absent from his feature-length debut that's because even the fretful bear should feel bullish about its prospects.
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After all few figures from children's literature embody the spirit of cultural curiosity more directly than Paddington Bear a plucky naif who journeys all the way from Lima to London in search of a better life. King's script written with a story assist from Hamish McColl fills in a more elaborate backstory for him than Bond's books do: A swooping colorful first act details Paddington's blissful childhood with elderly relatives in the rainforests of Peru. The idyll is rudely destroyed by an earthquake that leaves his uncle Pastuzo (voiced by Michael Gambon) dead and his aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton) headed to a retirement home. Replacement Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw a more suitably boyish mid-production replacement for Colin Firth) is left alone to make the transatlantic odyssey. It's a trip of which Lucy had only dreamed since being educated in all things English by a friendly explorer from the Geographers' Guild of Great Britain a detail illustrated in an amusing introductory pastiche of 1930s newsreels that includes of all things a supremely unlikely reference to Jane Campion's 'The Piano.' Such sophisticated in-jokery is to be expected of King: Best known for his work on the wildly absurdist TV comedy 'The Mighty Boosh' he's a pleasingly left-field choice of helmer for this project. Paddington's eventual arrival at his namesake train station and his subsequent discovery by the well-to-do Brown family hews closely to the setup of Bond's first book 'A Bear Called Paddington' with the key difference that their adoption of the animal is here announced as a temporary measure his plaintive quest for a permanent home driving the film's story. Audience As in the books the audience is required to believe that the arrival of a talking bear in London is unusual rather than extraordinary: Uptight dad and risk analyst Henry (Hugh Bonneville) is reluctant to take Paddington in but mostly due to the insurance challenges the beast presents. It's his kindly kooky wife Mary (an utterly disarming Sally Hawkins) rather than his wary children Judy and Jonathan (Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin both spikier than their golly-gosh counterparts on the page) who persuades him otherwise. Still it's not long before the bear begins winning over the family at large with his wide-eyed astonishment at urban living. It's here where the film is forced to part ways most drastically from its literary source: Where Bond's books are built from drolly episodic accounts of everyday misadventures that's a tricky structure to maintain in a mainstream children's film. In the interest of galvanizing the narrative and amping up the peril King and McColl have devised a cheerfully silly action-heavy chase plot that cribs heavily from '101 Dalmatians' complete with its own Cruella de Vil: bleach-bobbed taxidermist Millicent Clyde (Nicole Kidman) who's determined to nab one particular Peruvian breed of bear for her collection. This narrative development replete with 'Mission: Impossible'-style stunts and superb location use of London's neo-Gothic Natural History Museum may sit slightly oddly with the gentler situational comedy of Paddington's other exploits but the transition is eased by the film's bouncy pacing and consistently dry cockeyed humor in which Londoners' seen-it-all cynicism comes in for repeated ribbing. ('It's not much to go on' a police detective wearily tells Mary after she files a missing-person report for a bear in a blue duffel coat.) Meanwhile Kidman splendidly served by costume designer Lindy Hemming in a range of sexed-up safari gear is having such infectiously vampish fun as the villain bringing a Joanna Lumley-style purr even to lines like 'Get stuffed bear' that one can hardly begrudge her presence. Also: LONDON: British film authorities have managed to find dangerous behavior and sexual innuendo in a film about Paddington Bear a development that the bear's 88-year-old creator says leaves him 'totally amazed.' The British Board of Film Classification gave 'Paddington' a parental guidance rating saying it contains 'dangerous behavior mild threat mild sex references and mild bad language.' The rating means the film is suitable for general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for children under 8 years old. The board said the film's scenes of dangerous behavior include Paddington hiding inside a refrigerator. Michael Bond the author who created the much-beloved children's book character said he had not yet seen the family film which follows the adventures of the talking bear from Peru who travels to London looking for a new home. Still Bond told Britain's Daily Mail newspaper that he couldn't imagine what the sex references were. The film authority on Tuesday changed its guidance from 'mild sex references' to 'innuendo' after the movie's distributor objected. The description refers to a comic scene of flirtation involving a man played by British actor Hugh Bonneville who cross-dresses as a cleaning lady. Bonneville said it was 'slightly odd' for the scene to be described as containing sexual content. '(It was) frightening maybe but not entirely sexual' he told the BBC on Wednesday. 'I challenge any viewer ... who has been offended by the film to get in touch.' The movie is being released Nov 28 in Britain and early next year in the United States.
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