I went into Paddington 2 fully prepared to tolerate it. A children's film about a marmalade-loving bear, watched on a wet Tuesday because the thing I actually wanted to see was sold out. I expected ninety minutes of mild, harmless nothing, and I was wrong in a way I'm still slightly embarrassed about.
It is, and I say this as a grown adult with no children present, properly good. Not good-for-a-kids-film, just good. It is kind without being soft, funny without trying too hard, and there's a thread running through it about treating people well that lands harder than it has any right to. Hugh Grant is having the time of his life and it shows. I laughed out loud twice and got unexpectedly choked at the end, in a cinema, alone, on a Tuesday.
I think the reason it caught me is precisely that I'd written it off. Lowered expectations are a cheap trick but they're an honest one, and there's something to be said for going into things ready to be surprised rather than ready to judge. I do far too much of the latter, with films and, if I'm honest, with software and with people.
Anyway. If you've been avoiding it on the grounds that it's a bear in a duffle coat, I was you a week ago, and I was wrong. Go and see it. Take the cynicism, it won't last.