Paddington In Peru review: BRIAN VINER

Rating:

The honey has finally run out for Winnie-the-Pooh. According to the latest poll on this hairiest of questions, Britain’s favourite fictional bear is now the one with the marmalade sandwich under his hat – and Paddington in Peru can only compound his exalted new status.

Although a whisker-less entertaining than 2017’s sublime Paddington 2, this eagerly-awaited third adventure certainly pushes the boat out – and indeed down the Amazon, where I suspect the hand of co-writer Mark Burton in playfully referencing The African Queen, the Indiana Jones films, The Sound of Music and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Burton also wrote the forthcoming (and fabulous) Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, which similarly is full of nods to classic movies.

At 32 Windsor Gardens, Paddington (splendidly voiced once more by Ben Whishaw) receives a letter telling him that his beloved Aunt Lucy, resident at a Home for Retired Bears in his native Peru, is ailing and wants him to visit.

Legally, he can. Despite a photo booth debacle (a lovely rip-off of the 1987 Hamlet commercial, featuring Gregor Fisher as the hapless ‘Baldy Man’), Paddington now has a precious British passport. So, much as he prefers marmalade, the world is his oyster.

Mrs Brown (Emily Mortimer ably replacing Sally Hawkins) suggests the whole family go with him to South America. With daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris) about to leave for university and son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) a committed gamer who rarely exits his bedroom, she is developing a debilitating case of empty-nest syndrome.

A trip to Peru might be the perfect antidote, and Mr Brown (Hugh Bonneville), encouraged by his new boss at the insurance firm to take more risks, agrees. Naturally, shrewd old housekeeper Mrs Bird (Julie Walters) goes too.

Yet there is a shock awaiting them all. The retired bears’ home is run by nuns, whose smiley Mother Superior (Olivia Colman) tells them Aunt Lucy seems to have disappeared. 

Now, one of cinema’s apparently immutable laws is that the more Colman lights up the screen with her toothy grin, the more likely she is to be a covert rotter. We last saw it in Wicked Little Letters (2023). But you’ll find no spoilers here!

The Browns and Paddington are told that Aunt Lucy has headed into the Amazon rainforest in search of a mysterious place called El Dorado. Confused, our ursine hero at first pictures a fast-food joint of the same name back in London. 

But soon he is on board, literally so, when a riverboat captain by the name of Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas in fine comic form) offers to take them upriver. Trouble is, Cabot has an ulterior motive. He is haunted by the ghosts of his gold-obsessed ancestors, who have filled him with uncontainable greed. Missing Aunt Lucy is not the reason he wants to find El Dorado.

Much of this, of course, will sail over the heads of young audiences. But I watched the film in a cinema full of kids at the weekend and they seemed to be gripped throughout. Just seeing Paddington get in and out of scrapes

is enough, without needing to understand too much about ancient Inca riches being entrusted to the spirits of the jungle.

Grown-ups, however, might feel (as I did) that a little of the intrinsic charm and fun is lost by plucking Paddington away from London and his posse of neighbourhood friends such as Mr Gruber (Jim Broadbent), who make only a fleeting early appearance.

On the other paw, it’s a pleasure to spend an hour and 43 minutes with Paddington in any setting, and this film, like the first two, a slick blend of motion-capture, CGI and live action, contains plenty of delights.

The director is Dougal Wilson, making his feature-film debut. But he did direct several of those celebrated John Lewis Christmas ads, which might be why the producers entrusted him with another revered British institution: the loveable Peruvian bear with the hard stare.

Paddington in Peru opens on Friday.