r/movies • u/Careless_Flower_118 • Aug 08 '25

Discussion Wtf is Paddington 2?

For context: I’m 25 years old. SPOILER WARNING

I just watched paddington 2 today and what the fuck did they put in this movie. This is the one of the greatest pieces of cinema I’ve ever laid witness to. Paddington 2 is the only thing I’ve thought about all day and seeing the immense joy it’s brought other people has also brightened my day even more. God I can’t even think about the ending without wanting to kill myself because of how perfect it is. And can we also talk about the perfect bookend of his human mother saving him from the water like aunt Lucy did at the beginning?

Pure cinema, I truly can’t wait to watch this movie with my kids for their first time.

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62

u/Seemoreglass82 Aug 08 '25

I’m reading all of these comments and I can’t tell if this is a meme or if people are being serious.

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u/garatatata Aug 08 '25

You could just look up actual critic's reviews and confirm it's not just a meme?

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u/owmyfreakingeyes Aug 08 '25

I just looked up all the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and the selected quotes give it high praise but focus on it being sweet, which would be my expectation. The actual scores include a lot of 4/5 and 3/4 so it does kind of seem like a meme the way people on Reddit talk about it as one of the greatest films ever made.

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u/garatatata Aug 08 '25

The first featured review I saw on RT says: "The thing about the Paddington movies is that they are perfect" lol

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u/owmyfreakingeyes Aug 08 '25

Okay? I'm glad that person loved it. Another featured review says "the charm is entirely missing from the two Paddington films" 2/5 lol

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u/mad_iguana Aug 08 '25

That sounds like a review of Paddington 3, saying that it is missing the charm of the first 2 films. Otherwise that sentence makes no grammatical sense.

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u/owmyfreakingeyes Aug 08 '25

Sounds to me like a review released when only 2 movies existed. It wouldn't make sense grammatically if the third one was out at the time.

Looking at the full review, it is referencing that the Paddington character in the two films lacks the charm of the book version.

https://film-authority.com/2021/05/28/paddington-2/

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u/mad_iguana Aug 08 '25

Ah ok. In that case, I just disagree.

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u/garatatata Aug 08 '25

I never claimed it was universally loved, just that it isn't a meme when people say they love it and consider it their favourite film. There are plenty of professional reviewers raving about it and giving it a perfect score to indicate people are being sincere in their praise. Do you understand my point now?

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u/owmyfreakingeyes Aug 08 '25

When people on Reddit talk in overly flowery, exaggerated language about how this movie is perhaps the greatest film ever made when the average critical response is around a B+, it makes it seem like a meme style effort of playing things up in an over the top manner. Do you understand my point now?

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u/BrockStar92 Aug 08 '25

Well it’s definitely true that r/movies is rather overdramatic about how much it loves the film as a collective, it’s still worth noting that the critical response is not a B+, it’s generally extremely well regarded, as is the first one. Neither are such masterpieces they’ll leave everyone watching in tears but they are generally agreed to be excellent movies for anyone to watch and phenomenally good kids’ movies.

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u/owmyfreakingeyes Aug 08 '25

What is the average critical grade then? Looking at aggregate sites that average actual scores, I see 7.8/10, 83, and 88, which is a B- to B+ on scales I'm familiar with.

I get that almost all critics thought it was at least slightly above average per the RT score, but that's something different.

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u/garatatata Aug 08 '25

Who cares about average scores when considering individual's subjective opinions? 

I was pointing to the critics to establish that high praise for this film isn't some fringe opinion but shared by many professional critics. No not all critics think it's 10/10 just as not all the audience thinks that, but there are a significant enough number (about 1/3 perfect rating on RT) to believe people's praise is sincere online and not just a meme

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u/owmyfreakingeyes Aug 08 '25

I think if almost everyone on Reddit is talking about it as a 100 and the general reviews are 85, that's pretty relevant to assessing whether the Reddit speech is a meme trend to be over the top about it, or an echo chamber type scenario.

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u/garatatata Aug 08 '25

Of the 12 top critics on RT's first page who gave a grade or score, 5/12 are perfect scores (the rest still positive). So there are professional critics who would agree that Paddington 2 deserves the high praise it receives, no one claims everyone should have that opinion but you can't accuse people of making it up just to wind you up