He’s cute, curious and loves marmalade, and that’s all we really need to know about the bear Paddington in order to make his adventures in London so damn entertaining for two movies, with Paddington 2 being a certified masterpiece.
So the first thing we notice about Paddington in Peru is that the director is Dougal Wilson, making his feature debut and replacing Paul King, who gave us the first two Paddington movies (as well as the underwhelming Wonka). They’ve also replaced Sally Hawkins' Brown family matriarch Mary with Emily Mortimer, whom I love and who successfully carries the emotional weight of this installment quite nicely. But there are other, harder-to-pin-down alterations to the tone of this Paddington chapter: the warmth, charm and unique British wit is replaced with broader, more kid-friendly strokes that I’m sure will dazzle younger audiences but left me a little disappointed.
If you remember from the first film, Paddington is actually from Peru, and as the title may clue you into, Paddington (still voiced to compassionate perfection by Ben Whishaw) receives a letter from the Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman) running the home for retired bears where his Aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton) is living, alerting him that she isn’t doing well. By the time Paddington and the Browns (including Hugh Bonneville as Mr. Brown, and Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin as growing teens Judy and Jonathan, respectively), as well as their friend Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters) get to Peru, Aunt Lucy has disappeared, and the family must enter into a jungle adventure through the Amazon to find her.
We still get a taste of some of the original characters, including Jim Broadbent’s Mr. Gruber, but mostly, they are just sprinkled in at the beginning of the film to remind us where we’re starting. The film saves its new big guns (including the always-welcome Colman) for the Peru scenes. The biggest being Antonio Banderas as river boat captain Hunter Cabot, who is working with his estranged daughter Gina (Carla Tous). He plays it cool initially, but when his true goals are known, he reveals a side to his chaotic physical comedy abilities we don’t often see.
But the smaller, quieter moments kept me connected to the characters. There’s an opening sequence in which Paddington is alone, trying (and failing) to figure out a photo booth, and it’s far funnier and more charming than most of the overblown action sequences in Peru. Also, Mr. Brown is dealing with changes at his work, including the introduction of a risk-assessment expert (Hayley Atwell) who wants him to make riskier decisions in his personal life, something he is quite anxious about attempting (a scene with a deadly tarantula results from him pushing himself in this way). But it’s Mrs. Brown who pulled me in the most, with her not-so-veiled concern with losing Paddington to his homeland, which she sees in a similar vein of watching her own children prepare to make her an empty-nester. It’s a nice touch in a movie that could have used a few more real-life themes like this one.
Still, having Paddington on an actual quest opens up possibilities that simply having him roaming around London causing mischief doesn’t quite get to do. And with this cast (look for a much-needed cameo by a certain adversary from the second film in two credits sequences), it’s hard to go completely off the rails. As I said, younger viewers are going to devour this visual treat, and adults will enjoy the new characters, as well as the powerful, earnest sweetness of Whishaw’s voice work. One of the three had to be the weakest entry, but Paddington in Peru is still highly watchable.
The film is now in theaters.
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