Paddington in Peru
Risk averse Henry Brown (Hugh Bonneville) is facing a new manager, Madison (Hayley Atwell), who embraces it while trying to get his inventive son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) out of the bedroom and into a trade show. Mary Brown (Emily Mortimer, replacing the irreplaceable Sally Hawkins) has started painting a family series she calls 'the sofa years,' bemoaning the fact that her grown up family can no longer all fit on it while her daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris) prepares to go to college. So when Paddington (voice of Ben Whishaw), the proud owner of a new British passport, gets a distressing letter from Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman) from the Home of Retired Bears about his beloved Aunt Lucy (voice of Imelda Staunton), Mary decides it's the perfect occasion for a family trip in "Paddington in Peru."
Laura's Review: B+
With music video director Dougal Wilson taking the reins from the first two films' Paul King and the loss of the radiant Sally Hawkins as Paddington's adoptive mother and champion, "Paddington in Peru" was looking like a series downturn, but while it doesn't quite measure up to the first two films, it still has charm to spare, inventive flights of fancy and a deliciously wink-wink performance from Oscar winner Colman as a very suspicious nun. Add to that aging heartthrob Banderas playing riverboat captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) and five of his gold-lusting ancestors in a role that tips its hat to both "Fitzcarraldo" and "Kind Hearts and Coronets" and you've got a much better than anticipated threequel.
After being treated to a rousing song and dance number, the Reverend Mother leading her tap dancing nuns through an ode to Paddington as she strums her guitar 'Singing Nun' style and performs an Andean homage to the Alpine "Sound of Music," the Brown family arrives only to learn that Aunt Lucy had been acting strangely and now has gone missing. With housekeeper Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters) making base camp at the Home, the Browns hire Captain Cabot to take them to Rimu Rock, the mythical gateway to El Dorado Aunt Lucy has pinpointed on a map, despite Cabot's daughter and first mate Gina's (Carla Tous, HBO's '30 Coins') protestations that they do not travel there. We'll soon learn Gina is concerned about her father's hereditary lust for gold, passed down through generations from the original Spanish Conquistador whose painting hangs in his cabin through a missionary and even a female pilot. Meanwhile, back at the Retirement Home, Mrs. Bird is becoming alarmed by the Reverend Mother's odd behavior and the large electrical cable which appears to lead to a secret room.
If "Paddington" was the marmalade-loving bear's origin story, the third entry gives us an origin to that origin, its opening moments illustrating just how the young bear got lost (right after featuring him wearing an upside-down hibiscus flower anticipating his battered red bucket hat). Writers Mark Burton ("Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl") and TV's 'The Adventures of Paddington's' Jon Foster & James Lamont honor the first two films' storytelling flair (animating Mary's paintings while Cabot's comes alive), Paddington's Rube Goldberg-esque misadventures and outsized villains while retrofitting Paddington's London-based fish-out-of-water tale into a family adventure where the Browns must now face the jungle. Paddington ends up separated from his family, facing off with Cabot with the aid of some llamas while Mary Brown prays for a miracle only to have Mrs. Bird arrive with the Reverend Mother piloting a seaplane called...The Miracle. And lets not forget Henry's encounter with the purple kneed tarantula he's dreaded throughout the entire journey.
Most amazing throughout the series is the life given to Paddington himself, from the effects used to create a bear we believe is real to Wishaw's idiosyncratic perfection of a vocal performance. Wilson keeps things popping visually, the film's pace only beginning to lag a bit in its third act.
He and his writers honor what has come before (Jim Broadbent's curio shop owner Mr. Gruber is tied in with a wooden Peruvian bear sculpture) while turning a page that promises there is still more in the future for Paddington and his beloved Brown family.
Sony Pictures releases "Paddington in Peru" in theaters on 2/14/25.
