He may have been capturing hearts on the page since 1958, but Paddington Bear’s turn on the big screen has quickly evolved into his bread and butter (er, marmalade), and his importance simply can’t be downplayed. Far too often is the wholesome sheen of a family-friendly movie used to hide a lack of sincerity, storytelling talent, or what’s usually some combination of the two. In the hands of Paul King, however, the Paddington films have served up some of the sweetest, most creatively-realized G-rated romps of the last decade.
With Paddington in Peru, we’ve now gotten a glimpse of what these movies can do outside of the hands of Paul King, which is to say, not much. There exist echoes of the gag beats and attitudes that made Paddington’s first two outings so rightfully beloved, but a business-as-usual standout turn from Olivia Colman ultimately emerges as the only thing worth writing home about. It’s not quite a case of Paddington in Peru replacing its tried-and-true merits with cheap and lazy substitutes, but rather one of replacing them with nothing at all.
Once again starring Ben Whishaw as the voice of Paddington, Paddington in Peru follows the titular, mannerly ursine on a trip to his native Peru, where he believes his Aunt Lucy is in some sort of trouble. Tagging along are his adoptive London family, the Browns (Hugh Bonneville, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, Julie Walters, and Emily Mortimer, the later of whom takes over the role of Mary from Sally Hawkins), and it’s not long before trouble begins rearing its head in both silly and perilous ways.
Anyone familiar with Paddington’s films or character knows that taking him out of London sets up a particularly daunting storytelling task, but not necessarily an insurmountable one. After all, only so many times can you reuse the previous films’ DNA of xenophobia parable and the exponential spread of kindness before running out of steam, and there’s no reason that Paddington’s inspiring values can’t be given brand new storytelling avenues in a jungle setting.
And yet, they aren’t given those avenues. There exist notes of the importance in valuing love over fortune, which mainly come about by contrasting Paddington with series newcomer Hunter Cabot (a passably hammy Antonio Banderas), but the film seems to treat their dynamic as an afterthought. Instead, it spends a fair chunk of time delving into character backstories and legends about El Dorado, presumably because screenwriters Mark Burton, Jon Foster, and James Lamont missed the memo on the importance of lore in Paddington films (the memo in question: “it’s stupendously unimportant”).
Speaking of which, one of the most important aspects of Paddington films has always been their meticulously crafted gags and set pieces, and central to those operations was Paddington’s unique involvement in them. In Paddington‘s past, many of the laughs were driven by his characteristic misunderstanding of signs and social cues (such as balancing on his left foot when he spots the “Stay on Left” sign on an escalator), and/or the fact that he’s a small bear that doesn’t weigh very much (meaning he can get held hostage by an electrical cable and a ceiling fan in a way that fully grown humans can’t).
On top of that, King always went the extra mile to excavate the most mundane settings — be it a barbershop or laundry room — for their potential for gradual chaos, all while rendering the results in a far more cinematic manner than they had any right to be. Paddington in Peru, however, seems to treat this gag choreography as a chore rather than an expression of creative joy, often letting the perils of the jungle fill the chaos quota with hardly an iota of the recognizable effort that usually goes into setting up Paddington’s predicaments. The Brown family — largely reduced to individual vessels for one quirky character trait — are mostly left in the dust in this regard as well.
That being said, Paddington in Peru‘s character-specific sensibilities are its strongest asset, and that entirely has to do with the genius of casting Olivia Colman as the Reverend Mother at the Home for Retired Bears, who may or may not be hiding a dark (albeit entirely inconsequential) secret. Colman’s character isn’t used very well plot-wise, but the way she’s played is far and away the film’s brightest asset.
For one thing, Colman is one of the most sincere actors on this planet. In no performance of hers will you ever get a sense that she isn’t enjoying every second of it, and that pays dividends in a film series like Paddington. In this film specifically, she effortlessly channels a maternal energy that gives way to a far more suspicious aura, and back again, in the blink of an eye. Colman trusts the audience to know when her character’s game is afoot, and subsequently lets herself really play up both sides of her character, maximizing her screen presence in a way that the script doesn’t actively call for, and maybe even (wrongly) suggests against. It’s smart work from one of the leading dames of British film and television, who unsurprisingly thrives in the world of Paddington.
It would have been nice if the rest of Paddington in Peru trusted its audience the way she did, or if it full-sent the musical aspect that Colman’s character teases at the beginning. It might not have been particularly good, but it would have been something, which is sadly more than Paddington’s latest adventure can say for itself.
It’s key to acknowledge that a considerable portion of this review consists of unfavorable comparisons to its predecessors, which would normally be an unfair route to take here. Paddington films are allowed to be different from the ones that have worked, and at a certain point, these films will need to be different if Paddington’s big-screen odysseys continue from here.
But whatever parameters Paddington in Peru sets for itself, they aren’t given enough TLC to be worthy of a spot in a Paddington plot. They’re treated so meekly, in fact, that they’re overshadowed by the xerox of tried-and-true Paddington tools that the film does manage to drum up. And despite watered-down notes of classic Paddington still being ultimately welcome, it’s easy to spot the gap in quality between them and their much more richly rendered counterparts in Paddington and Paddington 2.
Nevertheless, Paddington — even at his worst — can do no wrong when it comes to keeping families company at the cinema, and there’s considerable joy to be found in seeing Olivia Colman enter this fray. But, if you have even quasi-convenient access to Paddington or Paddington 2, there are only upsides to watching those instead.
Published: Feb 15, 2025 8:35 AM UTC