The bar for the bear has been raised awfully high. A decade ago, the polite, Peruvian furball with a hankering for fruit preserves stormed the box office — and our hearts — with his first cinematic outing. Then Paddington 2 proved to be The Godfather Part II of adorable comedies, enhancing pretty much every aspect of the original and even proving a bonding experience for Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal in The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent. Keeping that triumphant roll going was always going to be a tough order. And so it proves — while this threequel provides laughs and charm and two new A-list bad’uns, there’s something intangible missing. The marmalade has lost a bit of its zest.
One issue is that Paddington is no longer out of his element. The marma-lad has left London before, in creator Michael Bond’s books — in 1961’s Paddington Abroad, he headed across the Channel, becoming the first bear ever to (accidentally) compete in the Tour de France — and it makes sense that he would be drawn back to the land of his birth. But as a fun, snappy sequence involving a photobooth at the start of Paddington In Peru illustrates, the character is at his most delightful when he’s causing pandemonium in polite society. Plonked into his natural environment, the jungle, the laughs become scarcer.
Instead, there’s more emphasis on his human family, who are now out of their element. New director Dougal Wilson, taking over from Paul King, now on Wonka-ing duties, has a lot of moving parts to grapple with here. Via a peculiarly brief guest appearance from Hayley Atwell (doing an unexplained American accent), risk-averse patriarch Henry Brown (Hugh Bonneville) is inspired to face his many fears and accompany Paddington on his rescue mission to South America. Also along for the ride are mum Mary (Emily Mortimer, replacing Sally Hawkins), daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris), son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) and even live-in housekeeper Mrs Bird (Julie Walters). It’s fun to see the whole Brown clan hit the road together, and Bonneville is on particularly winning form, stealing several scenes via a running gag about a rare tarantula. But it not only pulls focus from the duffle-coated star of the show, but leaves a few of the characters adrift — Judy, in particular, gets precious little to do.
Some of the warmth and wit and dashes of brilliant eccentricity are absent.
The film is more successful with its bad guys. As if aware of how daunting a task it has in matching Nicole Kidman’s taxidermy-mad Millicent and Hugh Grant’s preening thesp Phoenix Buchanan from the previous instalments, it pits our heroes against not one but two famous-faced foes. Olivia Colman is perfect casting as sinister sister Reverend Mother, overseer of the Home For Retired Bears (in case you’ve ever wondered which broadsheet elderly ursines read, it turns out it’s ‘The Grrrdian’). Whether riffing on The Sound Of Music, strumming irritatingly on a guitar, or struggling to keep a phony smile plastered across her face, Colman is great fun, though a little underused. Antonio Banderas, meanwhile, goes full Kind Hearts And Coronets, playing not just a boat captain with a secret, but his many descendants.
As Paddington In Peru heads down-river, its cinematic influences become clear. There’s a lot of Indiana Jones in there (weirdly, Banderas also played a boat captain in an actual Indy film last year), plus quite a bit of Herzog, though Aguirre: The Wrath Of God never had a scene in which Klaus Kinski got trapped in a hammock. Wilson even throws in a lovely nod to Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr., with Paddington standing in for the stone-faced comic. There are spooky temples and booby traps and exotic creatures. Kids will probably have a blast.
The only problem is that we now know just how transcendent these movies can be. And while all of the signature elements are present and correct, right down to the soul-shrivelling hard stare, some of the warmth and wit and dashes of brilliant eccentricity we’ve become used to are absent. It’s perfectly fine, but we (and probably Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal) were hoping for more than fine from the world’s most loveable bear. Next time: a little more zest, please.
