Movie Review: ‘Paddington in Peru’ Returns for Another Exciting Family Adventure

Director: Dougal Wilson
Writers: Mark Burton, Jon Foster, James Lamont
Stars: Hugh Bonneville, Ben Whishaw, Antonio Banderas

Synopsis: Paddington returns to Peru to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who now resides at the Home for Retired Bears. With the Brown family in tow, a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey.

It’s futile to think that Paddington in Peru could ever be as good, if not better, than Paddington 2. Yet many moviegoers were ready to throw in the towel and prematurely qualify the latest installment in Heyday Films’ adaptation of Michael Bond’s children’s stories as a disappointment because director Paul King went on to make Wonka, and Sally Hawkins did not return to portray Mrs. Brown. Why would you ever doubt one of the most lovable characters in all of children’s media, one who has stood the test of time and became a staple of British culture long before King brought him to life on the screen in 2015 is beyond me, but such is the Film Twitter bubble, I guess. 

Of course, you can’t top Paddington 2. That film will likely be considered one of the greatest sequels in cinema history a few decades from now (many already strongly think it is). But does Paddington in Peru truly need to? Absolutely not, especially when what’s on-screen retains the same charm and imagination that King laid forward in the first two movies, even if Sally Hawkin’s absence does linger on the family dynamic. With respect to Emily Mortimer, who gives a fine portrayal of Mary Brown, the relationship she has with Hugh Bonneville’s Henry Brown, alongside her children Judy (Madeleine Harris) and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), doesn’t connect as strongly as it did when Hawkins played the character. 

But that’s about the only glaring “flaw” Dougal Wilson’s endearing third entry in the Paddington saga has. It retains the same levels of charm and wonder as the first two movies, notably in the wondrous visual language returning cinematographer Erik Wilson gives to Windsor Gardens as the titular character (voiced again by Ben Whishaw) has since he became a British citizen from the last time we left him in the arms of Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton). How a marmalade-loving bear can receive citizenship in the United Kingdom, I have no idea, but it’s part of what makes these movies so ineffably fun. Paddington is a British icon, after all, so why can’t he become a citizen? There’s your answer. 

However, the celebration in the Brown household is short-lived when Paddington receives a letter from The Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman) of the Home of Retired Bears that tells him his Aunt Lucy has gone missing. With Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters) tagging along, the family travels to Peru, hoping to reunite Paddington with his beloved aunt. Upon their arrival, they are quickly thrust into a treasure hunt after the discovery that Lucy ran away from her home in search of the mythical El Dorado, which gold-obsessed boat captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) is also looking for with his daughter Gina (Carla Tous). 

This classic treasure-hunting story doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but neither did the first two installments. I don’t recall Paddington and Paddington 2 being movies that took drastic risks with their storytelling. How they were executed made these films impact young and old audiences alike. King took what looked like a simple story on the surface and elevated it with note-perfect humor and eye-widening aesthetics that profoundly touched generations of children and might even make some of them believe in the magic of moviemaking. There hasn’t been a great live-action family franchise in forever. Studios have grown out of touch with what truly resonates with children and gives them genuine emotional power, especially in the live-action world. They’d rather spend money on Harold and the Purple Crayon or Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, equally horrific pictures that set the now stale world of children’s cinema back to potentially irredeemable depths.

That’s why it feels so special to have Paddington go, this time around, on a larger-than-life adventure with set pieces inspired by Indiana Jones, Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, and perhaps splashes of James Gray’s The Lost City of Z. There are obvious visual cues sprinkled throughout, but even for the children who are uninitiated to adventure cinema, Paddington in Peru has enough highly-imaginative sequences of pure whimsical energy that it becomes hard to resist what Wilson ultimately offers in front of us, especially when the titular character hasn’t lost his comedic touch from the second film, despite a change in the director’s chair. 

A shipwreck sequence with Paddington attempting to drive the boat but further endangering it to be destroyed by the moving rapids? This is Paddington’s homage to Herzog’s film, and anyone who isn’t grinning ear-to-ear during this sequence may not like cinema. I don’t make the rules. Or how about an entire climax set in front of the entrance to El Dorado featuring a boulder, marmalade-loving llamas, and a rare, venomous spider? Absolute peak, if I do say so myself. What makes both of these scenes work so well isn’t so much the well-timed humor of Whishaw’s vocal turn as Paddington but how Wilson always communicates with Erik Wilson’s camera to continuously be in service of the protagonist’s actions.

Notice how he stages the climax. We always follow Paddington despite often showcasing Cabot running after the bear. How the camera moves during a specific moment where he attempts to hide (without much success) from the antagonist side-scrolls to his angle and never breaks it until editor Úna Ní Dhonghaíle cross-cuts to the Brown family’s antics on a moving plane dubbed as “The Miracle.” Rarely have we seen, in modern family cinema, such impeccable precision in its cutting, where every single editorial choice creates a level of tension and excitement as Paddington’s journey reaches its death-defying conclusion. It’s always in service of the story, first and foremost, and nothing else. 

It, of course, stays well within the confines of family entertainment, but one can’t deny the formal edge it has over literally every other live-action children’s offering made in this decade. The exterior shot of the plane traveling to Peru visualizes the aircraft through papier mâché, while the finale is all about celebrating the legacy of adventure films, putting Paddington in a series of mild thrills that Wilson elevates through surprisingly kinetic visual style and dynamic editing. There’s always a sense of play in how the camera moves within the scene or in how Dhonghaíle cuts from one frame to the next. It always focuses on the protagonist, and that’s primarily why these movies have always worked like a charm.

Yes, the family dynamic between Paddington and the Browns remains rock-solid. And the additions of Olivia Colman, Antonio Banderas, and Carla Tous all bring newfound vigor to the proceedings. Banderas revels in a Phoenix Buchanan-type performance (though Hunter’s ‘other selves’ are descendants haunting his mind as ghosts, not disguises to foil Paddington et al.) and has tons of fun attempting to overcome his family’s curse, while Tous impresses in a genuine breakout turn. I wonder how different it would’ve been had Rachel Zegler stayed on the project (she was sadly forced to exit, as the film was shot during the SAG-AFTRA strike), but I doubt the relationship between father and daughter would’ve been as genuine as it feels here.

Above all else, though, there’s Paddington, and Whishaw brings the same soft-heartedness as he did in the first two movies and gets even more emotional than the second film’s ending upon finding out what El Dorado holds in store for him. What it is, I will not tell you. But when you discover it on your own, it will be very difficult to hold back tears. There wasn’t a dry eye in the cinema during a sold-out promotional screening, myself included. Sometimes, it feels right to cry, especially when you have Paddington at your side, reminding us that there is always good to be found in a world that feels drearier by the minute. In that sense, Paddington in Peru arrives at the perfect time and is primed to capture our hearts yet again for some much-needed escapism from the dark clouds of reality.

Navel-gazing cynics may nitpick at elements they really shouldn’t care about because when such joyful exuberance reminds you of life’s pleasures, perhaps it’s best just to sit back and have fun. Some movies demand it. Paddington in Peru is undoubtedly one of those. 

Grade: A