Threequels, ugh. Sometimes, they become timeless classics — much beloved and endlessly rewatchable — others serve as the black sheep of the family, the lesser-thans, the unadored. The latter are often ridiculed when compared to their celebrated brethren, relegated to "worst of" lists and derided for their inane plots and underwhelming existence. Paddington in Peru, the latest adventure featuring everyone's favourite marmalade-swilling bear, firmly sits somewhere in the middle: not necessarily a failure yet nowhere near as fun, entertaining or unique as its genius predecessors.
The film starts with a quick origin story, and we get to see where Paddington's (voiced by Ben Whishaw) love of and for oranges (and thus, marmalade) comes from. We also learn that this particular fruit has put him in peril since has was a wee cub.
Flash forward to the present: Paddington's darling Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton), who found him abandoned as a young'un, has gone missing, and it's up to Paddington and the Brown family — Henry (Hugh Bonneville), Mary (Emily Mortimer), and kids Judy and Jonathan (Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin, respectively) — to find her. They travel to Peru with Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters) in tow and once there, find themselves at the Home for Retired Bears, a sanctuary run by the Reverend Mother (a delightfully unhinged Olivia Colman) and her nuns.
The family ends up on the boat of Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) and his daughter Gina (Carla Tous), who run tours down the Amazon River. Of course, not everything is as it seems, and Lucy's secretive quest becomes Paddington's, or so we think! The twists and turns come from all angles — relentless and convoluted.
There are Chaplinesque moments of clowning and buffoonery, and cinematic references abound: the Indiana Jones series, Buster Keaton and the films of Werner Herzog all make an appearance — Hunter, in particular, has a rather Fitzcarraldo vibe. Banderas himself is always great as the villain, and he plays Hunter with a whole slew of manipulative ancestral spirits, including a treacherous conquistador obsessed with finding the treasure that is El Dorado. While Banderas is a really great actor, Hunter's villainy and charisma don't match that of Hugh Grant's Phoenix Buchanan from Paddington 2.
Paddington in Peru contains moments of cinematic whimsy, including camera work and consciously practical vintage "effects" that rival Wes Anderson's most audacious, artificial moments. A doll house opens up and reveals the family working and resting inside, while the family takes flight to Peru on a toy airplane. A joke involving a marmalade-loving llama provides a great update on the horse and carrot, and honestly, llama-dude is right: those sandwiches are more delicious.
There are also numerous Easter eggs peppered throughout, and the cinematography renders lush and crisp, in the jungle and otherwise. A perfectly messy Paddington remains a menace to good form and not falling down, and his obliviousness leads to many of the film's more slapstick moments. His clumsiness essentially acts as deus ex machina: he always seems to fall at the right place and at the right time. Unfortunately, his darling naïveté isn't as charming in the jungle, and it's easy to miss his cosmopolitan adventures in London.
These and other changes can mostly be attributed to a shift in the creative team: while Paul King directed and wrote Paddington and its 2017 sequel co-written with Simon Farnaby, Dougal Wilson takes over the director's chair in Paddington in Peru with a script written by Mark Burton, Jon Foster and James Lamont. King and Farnaby receive a "story by" credit, but with such drastic changes, differences in style, substance and consistency are inevitable and felt throughout.
The film's gags and their pacing become its biggest flaw, which its predecessors have prided themselves on. The gags aren't nearly as funny or as snappy, instead feeling drawn out, and at 106 minutes, Paddington in Peru simply drags, particularly the overextended third act. Unevenly spread out, the action sequences cause the film to lose its momentum. Parents taking the little ones to see this in the theatre beware: their antsy-ness will no doubt arise.
The script also features so many "gotchas!" that it begins to feel manipulative. While some stick, most of the various villain reveals — their multiple ulterior motives, secret rooms and bad intentions — are anticlimactic. Certain plot points and conflicts (the B-story with Mrs. Bird and the nuns; the parents' feelings of obsolescence and nostalgia) seem to only serve the purpose of extending the runtime or tugging at the heartstrings, and many of these are solved or left behind quickly and unceremoniously, while others linger way longer than they should, such as Hunter's internal battles with his spectral ancestors.
Most egregiously, the filmmakers clearly wanted to infuse Paddington in Peru with some socio-political commentary about imperial infiltration by British missionaries into South America and the Amazon, but the film's commitment to silliness gets in the way of any real criticism or anti-colonial message.
Paddington in Peru serves as a powerful parable for family, self-actualization and self-recognition, even though it's also quite trite and pretty dull; still, the film delivers a chortle and tear or two. While the film runs the gamut from sincere to saccharine, the family's final moments in Peru are beyond heartwarming, inevitably causing viewers to cry regardless of their emotional state entering the theatre. With these moments, and a very funny end credit sequence, the creative team somewhat redeem their long-winded story, even if it takes a long, hot slog through the cinematic jungle to get there.