Some things in life are simply too wholesome to disparage. Mr. Rogers is one, “Wallace & Gromit” is another, and if one were to pick a third example, it would be all too easy to turn towards just one of Britain’s seemingly abundant animated bears. For our purposes, the bear in question is none other than Paddington Brown, whose status as a symbol of friendliness par excellence had been firmly cemented into the new millennium thanks to Paul King’s duology of live-action films.
Naturally, any filmmaker scaling such unparalleled heights as “Paddington 2” would see fit to close the chapter on this pop-up book and leave things on the highest of notes, and technically speaking, King has; now, it’s first-time director Dougal Wilson who’s been selected to close out this trilogy with “Paddington in Peru.” As you’ve probably surmised from the title, this newest film promises novelty not only in its director but also in its locale. At the end of the day, though, some comforts simply can’t be surpassed, and typically, that’s for the best.
Once more, our beloved bear (Ben Whishaw) is enjoying the comforts of life in London with the Brown family. As the family’s children begin to inch towards adulthood, things begin to shift beyond the casting of mother Mary (Sally Hawkins, unable to return, has been ousted for Emily Mortimer), as everyone’s priorities begin to separate the tight unit that made this household so inviting for the Peruvian expat in the first place. Coincidentally, this shift comes in tandem with Paddington receiving a letter from his beloved Aunt Lucy’s Home for Retired Bears, stating that she misses him more than ever.
Seizing the opportunity for a family bonding experience via jungle-bound getaway, the Browns pack up to visit Aunt Lucy, only to learn from the home’s caretaker Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman) that the bear has mysteriously vanished. Determined to find his aunt safe and sound, Paddington embarks with the Browns on a quest through the Amazon, aided by a local guide (Antonio Banderas) with a family history of glory-bound treasure hunting.
Whatever is lacking in “Paddington in Peru” that made Paul King’s renditions so transcendentally heartwarming—especially in a continually degrading field of family entertainment—isn’t as easy to sniff out as a marmalade sandwich. For those perplexed at the overwhelming acclaim received by King’s films, Dougal’s outing will likely read as an equivalent piece that, like the Browns, feels refreshed and challenged by a change of scenery.
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True, the enchanting heart of the characters remains intact this go-around; King’s story credit at least ensures that his pawprint remains in some capacity, and Whishaw’s ever-whimsical voice work continues to bring such tangible oblivious charm to the bear that it continues to baffle the mind that someone as adult as Colin Firth—polite and proper as he is—was ever even in consideration for this role.
What remains of the returning cast is always game for some wholesomely silly antics, and the new players prove equally adept in this world. Even the franchise staples remain to give the sense that we’re traversing the family film equivalent of hallowed scripture; never has one of Paddington’s hard stares been as directly consequential to a moment of character development as it has here, even if it feels, in the grand scheme of things, to be a moment shoehorned in because we expect it to be here.
In truth, the biggest drawback of “Paddington in Peru” is simply that this trip didn’t really need to be taken at all, as the image of the bear buried in Aunt Lucy’s arms at the end of the previous film was more than a perfect note on which to close things out. At this point, in yet another sad commentary on the current state of family films (and sequels), Wilson’s greatest victory appears to be that he’s retained the existing charm of the characters without noticeably running this IP into the ground.
In all fairness, there is condescension-free value to be had in that achievement, as the film’s introduction of new faces continues to make this world more robustly amusing, even outside the borders of London. Colman and Banderas make for such perfect inclusions—Banderas with his recent streak of silly costuming for children’s fare, and Colman with her permanent infectious smile and… overall Britishness—that it’s a wonder they weren’t here from the start. Wilson’s assertion that aspects of the film were influenced, in small part, by Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo” extends just about as far as Banderas’s outfit and his latent Kinski-esque madness, but it’s certainly there, as are any number of other loving references to cinema’s past (in particular, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Steamboat Bill, Jr.”).
Usually, when a director brushes off criticisms of their film’s simplicity—its easily telegraphed developments and worn character arcs—with the phrase “It’s a movie for kids,” such assertions read like lazy justifications that stomp all over the intelligence of their younger prospective viewers. Dougal Wilson (to my knowledge, at least) hasn’t made any such claims of “Paddington in Peru,” but if he had, this would read like the rare case in which asking more of the material would be unfair; this is a film for kids, and one perfectly emblematic of such a designation being anything but insulting. But to borrow a clichéd adage often espoused to children, in this film’s search for lost treasure, it shouldn’t take a journey through raving rapids and spider-infested brush to learn that Paddington had these goods all along.
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