The Film (5/5)

    Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw), has settled into life with the Brown family. However, he is lamenting over the fact that he has not found a good gift for his Aunt Lucy's 100th birthday. One day he finds a rare pop-up book showing off the monuments of London, a city that his Aunt loved from afar, but could never visit. Unfortunately, it would cost him more money than he has. He begins attempting to work odd jobs to save up for the book, in a series of comedic vignettes. One night, however, he sees a robbery in progress at the antique shop housing the book, and ends up framed when it gets stolen.  This causes Paddington to end up in jail.  While in jail, the Browns and his friends in the neighborhood attempt to get him freed, while trying to find out who committed the actual crime. At the same time Paddington works to befriend fellow prisoner and change life in the prison for the positive in the way only Paddington can.

    Paddington 2 is a sheer delight from beginning to end, and can certainly go in that group of rare sequels like Godfather 2, The Road Warrior, and Troll 2 that exceeds the quality of the original. The film takes all the wonderful elements that worked from the first film, and somehow made them greater instead of feeling like they were duplicating past successes.  The writing is both sharp, cute, and always charming. This is one of the rare breed of family films that can certainly be enjoyed by children and adults in equal measure.

    Of course, any review of the film has to mention the cast which is impeccable. We, of course, get Skyfall's Ben Whishaw in the role of Paddington, but also Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), Huge Bonneville, Hugh Grant, Jessica Hynes, Jim Broadbent, each a sheer delight in their respective roles. The film also has a stunning visual style from moments that take us from the London streets to more surreal moments like balloon flights over the city itself.

Audio/Video (5/5)

     Warner Brothers presents Paddington 2 in a splendid 2:40:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer preserving the OAR of the film. Paddington 2 looks simply gorgeous, colors pop from the screen, detail is excellent throughout the film, and black levels are nice and deep.

   Audio is handled by a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track in English. Everything here from ambient sounds, dialogue, and score are well balanced and come through clearly with no issues.

Extras (2.5/5)

    Not too much in the way of extras. There is a short BTS featurette, a music video with Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant), A Marmalade sandwich instruction video, and more.

Overall

    Paddington 2 is one of the most delightful family films to come along this entire decade, and truly best the already fantastic original. The Blu-ray looks and sounds fantastic, but is limited with extras RECOMMENDED.