PADDINGTON IN PERU - Mark Reviews Movies

Paddington in Peru, Sony Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 13, 2025

Paddington in Peru has some mighty big shoes—or, better, a peacoat—to fill, following the surprising achievement of its great predecessor Paddington 2. There's a mostly new team of filmmakers this time around, and in the spirit of the title character, one wants to hope for the best for them as they take over the tale of the kind-hearted bear. It brings no pleasure to say that this movie falls well short of the previous two.

Paddington, the creation of the late Michael Bond, is a simple character with simple means and goals. An adventure for him is the stuff of everyday life, being a talking bear from Peru who unexpectedly finds himself in London as the ward of an ordinary British family. The first miscalculation of this screenplay, written by a trio of newcomers to the series (Mark Burton, Jon Foster, and James Lamont), is to take Paddington out of the city and return him to the jungle of his homeland. To be clear, the basic idea of such an adventure is fine in theory, but the screenplay here takes the notion of an adventure for Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) to some extremes.

The adventure matters more than the characters this time, as Paddington and his adoptive family the Browns find themselves on roaring rapids, lost in the rainforest, and contending with a couple of villains who, to be fair, don't know any better than to be greedy and heartless. When the bear gives one of those baddies his trademarked "hard stare" to point out how impolite the antagonist is being, it's a legitimately funny and pleasant moment, because it's as if the filmmakers have finally remembered the character at the heart of this story—the one they've gone so far out of their way to ignore.

Our beloved bear is still the same good-natured and optimistic creature, of course, which is why he ends up in Peru in the first place. The opening scenes remind us of the slapstick humor from the previous films, as Paddington attempts to get his passport picture taken at a photo booth with much trouble, and catches us up on the rest of his London-based family. The Browns have changed quite a bit, and that's not even taking into consideration that Mary Brown is now played by Emily Mortimer (a fine choice).

She's still painting, but with her son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) is now living mostly out of his bedroom—devising inventions to make his comfortable life even more comfortable—and daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris) preparing to go to university, Mary isn't sure what she'll be doing with herself from now on. Meanwhile, her husband Henry (Hugh Bonneville), a long-time insurance company employee with a fear of danger, is encouraged to start embracing risk at the behest of a new boss.

The opportunity for the family to be together again or one last time comes when Paddington receives a letter from the head of the retirement home for bears in Peru where his aunt Lucy (voice of Imelda Staunton) is living. She has been showing some worrying behavior and misses Paddington, so the family drops everything to join the bear on his visit. Upon arriving, the abbess (played by Olivia Colman) in charge of the place informs Paddington that Lucy has gone missing. He's determined to find her.

From there, the movie, directed by Dougal Wilson (his debut feature), seems more concerned with everything surrounding Paddington and the Browns than the family itself. We meet boat captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas), who provides jungle tours with his daughter (played by Carla Tous), and soon enough, it's revealed that Hunter comes from a long line of treasure-seekers. Obsessed with the lost city of El Dorado and believing Paddington is the key to finally finding it, he starts putting everyone in all sorts of peril—when he isn't actively thinking about or trying to do harm to our ursine hero (Did nobody here learn from the strange tonal shifts a murderous villain brought to the first film?).

The short of it is that all of these side characters, with the abbess also being overtly suspicious by unnecessarily describing lots of things as "suspicious," and this adventure-based plotting overshadow what makes Paddington, his relationship with the Browns, and his worldview so loveable in the first place. The story is oddly focused on action, featuring setpieces of the boat threating to capsize and of a rough flight in an old plane and of a chase through the byzantine ruins of an ancient Incan city. The characters follow suit, as well. There's little time for them to be themselves, simply because they're so busy discussing some clue or what step to take next or to solve the riddles of the lost Lucy and mythical city.

The filmmakers seem to be counting on our affection for these characters, especially Paddington, as cemented by the previous entries. When Paddington in Peru reaches a climax that actually cares about this family, the movie is somehow genuinely affecting. It only makes one wonder how the rest of the movie so thoroughly overlooked such vital elements of these stories.

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