Paddington in Peru – Review

“PADDINGTON IN PERU”

Paddington in Peru is the latest film in the series, and has most of the cast returning to reprise roles, with some exceptions; the most notable being that Sally Hawkings has been recast as Emily Mortimer for the role of Mary Brown, you may recognise her as Jane Banks from Mary Poppins Returns. Another notable change is that Paul King has not returned to direct, with Douglas Wilson taking over for this film, since I believe Paul King was busy working on Wonka.

The plot this time is fairly simple, Paddington (played again by Ben Wishall) after getting British Citizenship, travels with the Brown family to Peru after receiving a letter from the Mother Superior (Olivia Coleman) that runs the Retirement Home for Bears, that his Aunt Lucy (Imjelda Staunton) has been acting very strangely. Once they arrive, they find that she has gone missing and the whole family must go and rescue her. Typical kids’ movie plotline, but you know what you’re getting into. There are a few plotlines surrounding the ship’s Captain that they hire (Antonia Banderas), who clearly has a secret motive for helping them out, as well as some odd goings on at the retirement home that is investigated by Mrs Bird (Julie Walters, who I will never get tired of seeing in these films)  but for the most part it’s a typical kids adventure film.

The point of these films is to be very wholesome and to get well-known actors to become complete pastiches of themselves. This is definitely the case with Antonio Banderas, who I swear at this point has just become a complete cartoon persona of himself, he’s definitely channelling his Puss in Boots role.

The strength of this film is definitely in the cast, once again. They know what film they’re in and they’re not trying to hide it, and this is especially true of Ben Whishall, who proves once again that he was absolutely right to take the role in place of Colin Firth.

Personally, I think that it’s another really strong film in the trilogy. It’s very likeable and it has a lot of the warmth that the previous films had, and I may describe the comedy as groan worth, it’s definitely the weakest of the trilogy. It’s the worst of a great bunch, but unlike the others it doesn’t flow as well. It feels like several events colliding with each other.

The major themes of the other films are there, the main one focuses around Paddington dealing with where he is now and where he has come from, and I think it’s interesting that at this point in time there is a front page story about the feelings of someone gaining British Citizenship, at a point when prejudice is growing at a rate that is very alarming.

While I said I don’t think that the comedy in this film was as strong as the other two, there were still a lot of times that made me genuinely laugh, and there were few times where it took me out of the movie- it’s still very well put together in many regards!

Though I think that if you enjoy the cast of the previous films, you may be disappointed since actors like Jim Broadbent, Joel Fry, Jessica Heigns, etc, are pretty much reduced to cameos. Peter Capaldi’s neighbour character isn’t even in the movie! That being said- the new cast is really strong. Olivia Coleman seems to be having the time of her life in this performance, and I’ve already commented on Antonia Banderas. I don’t envy the hard task that Emily Mortimer had of taking on a recast role, but she does a fine job in the role.