The latest adventures of the punctiliously polite, marmalade-loving Paddington Bear is family-friendly fun for all ages, thanks to a marvellous script, a sterling cast and the adept, sure-handed direction of Paul King. 
 
 What a pleasant surprise — a sequel that bears up to and perhaps even exceeds the original. 
 
 The story dovetails seamlessly with the first Paddington in 2014, based on the beloved children’s books of Michael Bond about an orphaned Peruvian bear who finds a home in London, where he manages to spread loads of joy to those around him along with a little unintended mayhem. 
 
 Uncle Pastuzo is gone so Paddington is desperate to give dear aunt Lucy back home a particularly special gift for her 100th birthday, and what better than a pop-up book of London landmarks he finds in the old curiosity shop of Mr. Gruber (Jim Broadbent)? 
 
 But the book, which Paddington is saving up to buy in his new job as a window washer — a task he really puts his back into — has also drawn the interest of a has-been actor Phoenix Buchanan, who sees in it a treasure map to a fortune that can bankroll his long-awaited comeback. 
 
 In pursuit of the thief, Paddington is collared and sentenced to prison by a gruff and grudge-bearing judge (Tom Conti), a previous victim of Paddington’s well but misguided intentions. 
 
 You wouldn’t imagine a bear in the big house would be fertile ground for comedy but in this instance, you would be mistaken. And with Paddington doing hard time, it’s up to the Brown family to track down the real thief.
– Since 2014's Paddington, the cuddly bear has settled into his new home with the Brown family in London, but his adventures are by no means over. In Paddington 2, he gets a job so he can buy a rare book for his aunt but is wrongly imprisoned for its theft before the transaction can take place. According to critics—who give it a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes—this is not a film to miss. "The movie is full of bright wit and sincere joy, as Paddington's innate kindness permeates all around him, providing a weary world just what it needs right now," writes Sean P. Means at the Salt Lake Tribune. But much more than "a warm bear hug," the film delivers fun "by the bucketful" and leaves no stone unturned "if there's a clever joke to be found under it." In other words, it's "completely delightful." "What a pleasant surprise," Bruce DeMara writes at the Toronto Star. Blending "seamlessly" with its predecessor, Paddington 2 is "family-friendly fun for all ages, thanks to a marvelous script, a sterling cast and the adept, sure-handed direction of Paul King," DeMara writes. He was especially impressed with "a sublime pop-up animation scene that demonstrates King's copious attention to detail," but says the whole film is "visually lovely." "We'll be hard-pressed to find a more delightful film in all of 2018," Adam Graham puts it at the Detroit News. "The whole enterprise is so whimsical and, well, British, that it feels like being whisked away to a different place," he writes. "If you have kids, take them. If you have nieces and nephews, take them. If you don’t have kids but just want to feel like one yourself, go see it," he adds. "Two paws up." Justin Chang, too, notes this is not just a film for kids. It keeps the "gently whimsical, thoroughly British spirit of Michael Bond's original books" and "wraps you in its own warm embrace from start to finish," but is also "full of inspired blink-and-you-miss-it wordplay," he writes at the Los Angeles Times, also applauding Hugh Grant's "terrifically self-skewering" performance and the "marvelously intricate" production design.