VERDICT: Might not reach the heights of its predecessor, but this latest adventure of the globe-trotting naif has all the heart, wit, musicality, and meaning that the Paddington franchise brings to bear.
To say that Paddington in Peru falls short of the near-perfection of Paddington 2 is to praise it highly nonetheless; it’s no mean feat to follow one of this generation’s most beloved films, but Paddington in Peru nonetheless delivers the charm, the wit, the music, and the gentle messaging that made its two predecessors such favorites among audiences of all ages.
If the first two Paddington movies were about the joys of being an immigrant, and all the wonderful things that immigrants bring to their new communities, Paddington in Peru explores the tug between one’s native land and one’s adopted home. When Paddington sticks his head out of a bus window in Peru and takes a deep, satisfying sniff of the jungle, I was reminded of the times I’ve visited Spain — a country where my parents were born, but where I have never lived — and felt an inside tug telling me I belonged there.
The film opens with Paddington (once again voiced by Ben Whishaw) obtaining his UK passport, but not without some physical-comedy shenanigans involving a photo booth. He’s going to get some use out of that document after he receives a letter from the Mother Superior (Olivia Colman) at the Home for Retired Bears back in Peru; she informs Paddington that his Aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton) has been missing her nephew and acting quite erratically.
With teenagers Judy (Madeleine Harris) and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) spending less time with their parents, Mrs. Brown (Emily Mortimer, taking over for Sally Hawkins) decides that a family trip to Peru with Paddington is just what the doctor ordered, over the objections of the risk-phobic Mr. Brown (Hugh Bonneville).
Clues left behind by Aunt Lucy suggest that she’s making her way toward a specific spot in the jungle that may or may not point the way to the legendary El Dorado, the city of gold, and the Browns recruit steamboat captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) and his teen daughter Gina (Carla Tous) to guide them. But anyone who has seen the previous two Paddington movies knows that characters played by A-list stars are never to be trusted.
Paul King, director of the first two Paddington films, decamped to make Wonka instead (he stayed on as executive producer), but music-video veteran Dougal Wilson, making his big-screen debut, proves to be a worthy substitute. As did King before him, Wilson revels in whimsy without drowning in it, and he finds the franchise’s sweet spot of cleverness, poignancy, elaborate physical comedy, witty wordplay, goofy musicality, and just the right amount of sentiment.
The cast is consistently on-point, from the returning Brown family (including Julie Walters as devoted housekeeper Mrs. Bird) to a game Mortimer taking on a thankless task. Colman and Banderas get to whoop it up: the former tackles the title song in a musical number that calls to mind any number of big-screen singing nuns, from Julie Andrews to Debbie Reynolds to Helen Reddy, while Banderas once again demonstrates the straight-faced absurdity that he’s brought to comedies worthy of his efforts (Puss in Boots, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water) and otherwise (Dolittle).
All the on-screen actors do a formidable job of treating the CG Paddington like a real, living being in their presence, and Whishaw once again provides the character’s intangible qualities; his talents, combined with the VFX team, have made the beloved bear one of the great movie characters of the 21st century, and franchise entries as entertaining as Paddington in Peru make the prospect of future chapters as tempting as a marmalade sandwich.
