Paddington in Peru Brings The Enchanting Fantasy Trilogy Home
If you are kind and polite, you’ll find joy in even the weakest Paddington movie.
Who could have predicted that Paddington Bear would have become one of the most beloved cinematic icons of the 21st century? In the 11 years since the marmalade-obsessed bear first entered our hearts with 2014’s Paddington, he’s become a fixture of the most acclaimed family franchise of our time, thanks to the magical touch of director Paul King.
Through the first two Paddington films, King elevated the wholesome talking bear into a Buster Keaton-like folk figure whose innate sense of whimsy and kindness could reform even the most uptight grump. Which made King’s departure from the franchise, to direct the very Paddington-like Wonka, so concerning. Could the third and final Paddington film do justice to our beloved bear, especially after the terrific Paddington 2 brought the franchise to stratospheric new heights? The answer is both yes and no. But even the weakest Paddington movie will make for the most joyful and delightful film you’ll see this year.
The Brown family gets lost in the Amazon.
Paddington in Peru opens with Paddington (Ben Whishaw) receiving a letter from the Home for Retired Bears in Peru, where his Aunt Lucy has been living. The letter, from the Reverend Mother (a hysterical Olivia Colman) who runs the home, is troubling: his Aunt Lucy has been behaving more erratically lately, apparently missing her beloved Paddington. Concerned for his aunt’s wellbeing, Paddington convinces the Brown family to accompany him on a trip back to his homeland — a trip that Mr. Brown (Hugh Bonneville) reluctantly agrees to in order to impress his new boss, and which Mrs. Brown (Emily Mortimer, gamely taking over from the iridescent Sally Hawkins) eagerly pushes for, wistful over the fact that her two teenage kids are growing up and growing apart. But when the family makes it to the Home, they discover that Aunt Lucy has gone missing. Paddington’s investigation of her disappearance leads him to a map to the mythical El Dorado, and lands the family on the boat of the charismatic river captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) and his cynical daughter Gina (Carla Tous). But in an obvious but no less entertaining twist, the captain is not all that he seems to be, and his insidious schemes result in Paddington and the Brown family facing a cascade of dangers as they make their way through the Peruvian Amazon.
Director Dougal Wilson, in his feature directorial debut, takes the reins from King, and spends most of Paddington in Peru trying to ape King’s specifically whimsical, Wes Anderson-lite style. This he does to mostly seamless success, though he can’t quite capture that specific bittersweet undercurrent that King so perfectly seeded throughout his Paddington movies. It doesn’t help that the previous Paddington scribe, Simon Farnaby, also left the franchise with King, though screenwriters Mark Burton, Jon Foster, and James Lamont do their best to do justice to King and Farnaby’s story. Even without quite all the emotional depth that King brought to Paddington, Wilson manages to steer the trilogy into a delightfully rousing, perennially heartwarming finale.
Olivia Colman gets to send up The Sound of Music in one particularly entertaining musical sequence.
The success lies, like in the previous two Paddington films, in its villain. It’s always been on the strength of our most committed movie stars taking delight in twirling their metaphorical mustaches that the Paddington movies have risen to such heights. In Paddington, Nicole Kidman vamps it up as an evil taxidermist, while Hugh Grant shed his sweetheart persona to give a campy, chameleonic performance as the egotistical actor, Phoenix Buchanan. Grant’s Phoenix Buchanan was so over-the-top and magnetic that he almost stole the movie right from under Paddington — a theft only stopped by Paddington engaging in the most delightful version of prison reform. Grant was going to be a hard act to follow, which is why in Paddington in Peru, the baddies are two-fold: there’s Banderas’ scheming gold hunter Hunter Cabot, and the surprise twist villain of Colman’s not-a-nun, Clarissa Cabot.
While Colman is predictably hysterical — happy to engage in more than a few physical gags and musical numbers — it’s Banderas who is the real MVP of this movie. He gives Grant’s Buchanan a run for his money, thanks to his donning of several different outrageous outfits and a blustering attitude to play Hunter Cabot’s ancestors (all of whom appear as hallucinations visible only to Hunter). Hunter Cabot himself is basically just Banderas’ Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny character, dialed up and given much more to do — a blessing, since Banderas is obviously having a blast.
Antonio Banderas is having a blast playing multiple roles and donning increasingly outrageously outfits.
But what of Paddington? Our hero is as wonderfully kind and polite as ever, though his antics lose a little of their impact in the wilderness of the Amazon. There’s not as much fun in seeing Paddington Buster Keaton his way through the jungle, especially when he seems as lost in his home terf as he once was in London. But that’s part of Paddington’s journey — a homecoming that shows him just how much of a home he’s made with the Brown family. Once Paddington in Peru moves to its third act and starts to have Paddington dodge boulders and booby traps, it feels like Wilson is finally having his own fun with the movie, and not the fun that he thinks Paul King would’ve been having.
While Paddington in Peru can’t reach the heights of Paddington 2 (and very few films can), it still manages to recapture that specific Paddington magic — that alchemy of whimsy, magical realism, and kindness that make the duffle coat-wearing bear such a beloved icon. More importantly, it brings the beloved franchise to a satisfying end, one that is hilarious and heartwarming in equal measure.
