Paddington (PG, 95 mins)

Paddington (PG, 95 mins)

Director: Paul King

4 stars

The makers of Nativity 3 should hang their heads in shame when faced with this rival for the family film Christmas box office crown.

Paying attention to silly little things like story, character, themes, emotion and fun, this first big screen outing for Michael Bond's beloved Paddington Bear is an unqualified delight.

With all the human characters played by live actors, the bear is realised through flawless CGI, while Ben Whishaw (a late replacement for the initially cast Colin Firth) provides the perfect voice accompaniment, one filled with innocence, curiosity and affection.

A lovely prologue in deepest, darkest Peru sets us up, as an English explorer encounters a family of talking bears. Many years later, a young bear and his marmalade-obsessed family are forced to flee the jungle following an earthquake and the young bear stows away to England.

He's discovered at the London train station from which he gets his name by the Brown family (including parents Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville). She wants to take the lost soul in, but he's less impressed, even more so when they get back to their home and realise Paddington, while not necessarily mischievous, certainly has an eye for getting into scrapes.

Though given a modern day setting, there's a timeless quality to proceedings that work as a comment on the cold, busy realities of city life, and how time should be made for others.

"Remember your manners" is the last thing his aunt tells Paddington as he leaves Peru, and themes of acceptance and kindness ring true throughout, alongside a cheeky dig at imperialism and a serious dig at those who would decry the benefits of immigration.

There's room for an actual plot too, which involves Nicole Kidman's evil taxidermist who has designs on stuffing Paddington for her collection.

There are some yuck-gags and knockabout stuff, but it could in no way be accused of peddling some jokes for youngsters and some for adults.

Really, it's jokes for everyone, almost all of them well-conceived and perfectly timed in their execution. It even manages a subtle fart joke, and you don't get many of those to the pound.

In its best moments it recalls Mary Poppins, and there isn't a higher recommendation than that.

It's a world steeped in unforced warmth and love, where people just accept talking bears. Bonneville's Mr Brown is to all intents David Tomlinson from Poppins, with his journey mirroring that of Mr Banks.

But above all it's just effortlessly entertaining in every way, and quite simply everything that audiences should deserve and demand from a family film.

See it if you liked: Yogi Bear, Winnie the Pooh, The Smurfs

Horrible Bosses 2 (15, 108 mins)

Director: Sean Anders

2 stars

The law of diminishing returns for comedy sequels comes into effect with this grim retread that once again stars Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day as a trio of hopeless friends who turn to crime when their luck deserts them.

After the events of the first movie they've quit their jobs with the intention of running their own company and have invented a shower device, the demonstration of which on a chat show makes for a very early example of just what level of coarseness this return is going to be reaching for.

When a flashy businessman (Chris Pine) and his father (Christoph Waltz) go back on a deal, they decide to kidnap and ransom Pine and, to no one's surprise they're even worse kidnappers than they are murderers - they were dim in the first film, but they surely weren't this dim.

You can 100% guarantee that Day and Sudeikis will behave like morons, with every plot point driven by their idiocy, and it soon becomes tiresome.

It's thoroughly undisciplined, with people just allowed to talk until one of them hopefully says something funny, which is very rarely the case.

Paying no regard to logic, which again can be overlooked if the laughs are plentiful enough, the series has gone from pretty funny to pretty much a laugh free zone.

Quite the most remarkable cast is topped up with a visit to Bateman's old boss in prison (Kevin Spacey), while Jennifer Aniston returns to lash on the crudity. A relaxed Bateman does his low-key exasperation while Day screams every line in deeply wearying style, and in the end it's far closer to headache-inducing than funny.

See it if you liked: Horrible Bosses, The Heat, The Hangover

Stations of the Cross (15, 110 mins)

Director: Dietrich Brüggemann

4 stars

The Stations of the Cross, a representation of what happened to Jesus on the way to his crucifixion, are the inspiration for this unique German drama.

Played out as 14 one-take scenes metaphorically depicting each stage, it centres on Maria, a modern day but devoutly Catholic teenager who is intent on devoting herself to a life of piety and sacrifice on the run up to her Confirmation.

As she rejects personal comforts and makes everything about Jesus while praying for a sick young brother, how that seeps into her life and behaviour is the basis for several powerful and starkly told scenes, and one or two fillers.

Acting and direction are first rate, and there's a subtle but persistent pricking not of religion, but of the anachronism of the influence of the church and the dangers of blind faith.

2001: A Space Odyssey (U, 134 mins)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

5 stars

As part of the BFI's Days of Fear and Wonder sci-fi season, Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece returns to cinemas to hopefully capture a new audience in the wake of Interstellar.

Any attempts at summarising the plot are futile, but as it essentially charts the entire evolution of mankind, Kubrick delivers iconic scenes and images that are at turns thrilling, mesmerising and utterly bonkers.

Any way you look at it though, it's a thing of wonder that absolutely demands to be seen on the big screen.