Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Here’s what “Paddington in Peru” has got that superhero flicks should have but usually don’t: a title song.
With lyrics.
That give us the movie’s title (duh), rough premise (the same thing in this case), a pithy synopsis of the title character’s general deal (“Does whatever a spider can,” etc.), and a hummable melody that’ll lodge in your head long after the particulars of this or that installment have faded.
This alliterative, site-specific “Paddington” three-quel has the good manners not only to give us such a number, but to have the great Olivia Colman perform it, instantly becoming our most winsome musical nun since Whoopi Goldberg. Colman – a new addition to this very English franchise who goes together with its existing retinue of beloved Brit thespians like peanut butter and marmalade – plays the Reverend Mother in charge of the Home for Retired Bears. She kicks off this rumble in the jungle by sending word to Paddington (soothingly voiced by Ben Whishaw, in the role he was born to play) in London that his beloved Aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton) has gone missing.
Naturally, Paddington would stop at nothing to aid the surrogate mama bear who found and nurtured him when he was just a cub, so vulnerable and helpless that he couldn’t speak the Queen’s English or fix himself a proper cup of tea. The fact that Paddington has just been issued his first passport, along with a congratulatory Windsor “brolly” courtesy of several of his neighbours at 32 Windsor Gardens, means he can now make the trip without risk of being denied reentry to the realm. (That passport, by the way, gives the day and month of his birth but not the year. I wanted to know!)
Paddy’s long-term hosts, Mary and Henry Brown (returnees Emily Mortimer and Hugh Bonneville, respectively), are wrestling with middle-aged ennui and imminent empty-nester status: They speak wistfully of “the sofa years,” when the assembled Brown clan could sit comfortably on one. So they and their no-longer-kids Judy and Jonathan (Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin, both 23 human years old in real life) opt to accompany their ursine ward (?) for a family holiday/search-and-rescue mission. Hilariously, they also bring their elderly live-in housekeeper, Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters), along on the 6,300-mile journey so that Mrs. Bird can make a nuisance of herself poking around Colman’s holy order while her employers are off doing “Indiana Jones”-style business in the brush.
And a merry chase it is, for the most part! If “Paddington in Peru” never quite ascends to the rarefied whimsical plane of 2017’s far-more-imaginative-than-its-title “Paddington 2,” it’s still the trilogy’s second-best entry – and that’s no back-pawed compliment. Paul King, who directed and co-wrote the first two installments before going on to make “Wonka,” has abdicated, handing the reins to Dougal Wilson. A commercial and music video veteran making his feature debut, Wilson proves a fine steward, preserving the genteel visual whimsy of the earlier films. An early dollhouse-style cutaway view of the Brown house to show us how wrapped up in their individual pursuits each member of the family has become is a lovely flourish, reminding us that these movies are adapted from a series of illustrated books for children, and from a less frenetic era of kiddie-tainment overall. There’s still plenty of nicely executed CGI-bear slapstick. In one bruising episode, Paddington, resolute in the face of inaccessible sleeping quarters, declares in voice-over, “The trick to a hammock is never to let it see you coming!”
Upon their arrival in Peru, the Browns link up with shady riverboat captain Antonio Banderas, essentially reprising his sea-dawg cameo from “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” but whose movie name here is Hunter Cabot. This is a highly advanced dramaturgic technique known as foreshadowing. Maybe even five-shadowing, because the character hails from a proud-if-unsuccessful line of treasure hunters. These greedy ghosts, all played by Banderas, become a sort of (Spanish) Greek chorus, urging their still-breathing descendant to betray Paddington and the Browns – and endanger his own daughter (Carla Tous) – to secure his fortune. There’s a funny montage of Banderas ancestors throughout history, all with that handsome-devil mug of his however else they’re costumed and styled, succumbing to various jungle threats. The present-day action is less dire, of course. The “Paddington” films want to entertain without raising your pulse too much.
It’s been seven years since “Paddington 2,” and everyone seems pleased to be reunited. An extended coda seems to portend at least another period of hibernation for the Paddington Cinematic Universe, if not a definitive finale. Whether Whishaw’s version of the famous-blue-raincoated furry Londoner returns or he doesn’t, no one can deny that “Paddington in Peru” is smarter than your average bear movie.
– – –
Three stars. Rated PG. At theatres. Contains mild action-adventure peril and infrequent rudeness, swiftly defeated by Paddington’s Hard Stare (TM). 106 minutes.
Rating guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars okay, one star poor, no stars waste of time.