Sequels everywhere!

Seems to be the month of sequels as I've watched 3 recently - Paddington in Peru, Moana 2 and Gladiator 2. All three of them are good if you liked the previous ones - they're playing up to their target audiences. But...

Gladiator 2 is so similar to the first movie, that you could be mistaken for thinking it is a remake. It reprises just 1 character from the original and is set a number of years later, but the meat of the plot is the same. Which I guess you'd kind of expect given that they called it Gladiator again.

Likewise, Moana 2 is again very similar to the first - she sails off, fights a god etc... There is at least some character development for her and some new songs, although nothing as good IMHO as "You're Welcome". It looks like they're going to do a third one too.

Paddington in Peru at least mixes things up, by having the story change location from London back to Paddington's birth place of Peru. But it is still Paddington getting into all kinds of silly trouble and styling it out with hilarious consequences. Its saving grace is Banderas - he seems to be having a whale of a time playing the villain.