REVIEW: Paddington In Peru - wonderfully warm-hearted fun

Paddington In Peru doesn’t scale the heights of Paddington 2, but it’s still a wonderfully warm-hearted place to be, a beautiful tale of being kind and good and of what it means to belong.

The first Paddington film saw Paddington as a fish out of water, suddenly in London, learning a completely new life with the Brown family who adopt him. This time round it’s the Browns who are out of their comfort zone as they fly off to Peru with Paddington, in answer to a plea for help sent on behalf of his beloved Aunt Lucy from the retirement home where she resides.

And it’s a great set-up for the risk-averse Mr Brown - Hugh Bonneville (see interview here) excellent on his third and final outing as the father of the house, a man who’s just been ticked off by his feisty new American boss for analysing risk when what he actually ought to be doing is embracing it. And he certainly gets his chance on the big family adventure. The threat of a certain huge scary spider hangs over him… until he faces it. Quite literally. And his final moments in the film are glorious. Bonneville’s kind-hearted, sorely-tried, unsung hero Mr Brown is a superb creation – all the more so once he’s really put to the test.

On arrival at the Peruvian home for retired bears, they are met by Olivia Colman as a singing nun whose constant smile seems ever more fixed, especially once we start to wonder just what on earth she is actually up to. More obviously the villain is Antonio Banderas’ handsome river boat captain, a man obsessed by gold, the search for it and by his grasping ancestors.

It all results in an epic trek through the jungles in search of a mythical land and a missing aunt – and great fun it is too. But maybe it just doesn’t quite have the humour which Paddington 1 and 2 had. And though we do get a little cameo, Paddington in Peru lacks the huge comic impact that Hugh Grant’s character had in the second film. The singing nun and the dodgy boat captain together don’t add up to the glories of Grant’s preening actor in the 2017 film.

And while you can quite see why for variety why we’ve all headed off to South America, the fact is that Paddington’s domain, where he can perhaps most be Paddington, is and always will be London.

But it’s still great to see him again for what is presumably the last time. Voiced as ever by Ben Whishaw, there is something so richly appealing about him, about his instinctive quest to be good, kind and polite; about that hard stare which is brought out when absolutely necessary; and about that endearing warmth he so naturally emanates. It’s been a wonderful trilogy, a genuine celebration of a very, very special bear.