Paddington In Peru (PG)

At home in Windsor Gardens, Paddington unexpectedly receives a letter from the Mother Superior of the Home for Retired Bears in South America. The holy sister discloses that Aunt Lucy is behaving peculiarly and may be yearning for a visit from her nephew. Paddington inspires an impromptu family holiday to Peru with Mr and Mrs Brown, children Judy and Jonathan and eccentric housekeeper Mrs Bird. The mystery deepens when the Browns finally arrive at Aunt Lucy's Cabin and discover she is missing.

LondonNet Film Review

Paddington In Peru (PG) Film Review from LondonNet

How do you improve on the near perfection of the first Paddington and a delightful, crowd-pleasing sequel, which lovingly ruffled the fur of Michael Bond’s Peruvian bear and brought the ursine hero to life with digital trickery and a marmalade-smeared flourish? You don’t. Like the original Star Wars trilogy, Paddington In Peru brings a triptych of self-contained adventures to a spirited but comparatively disappointing close, anchored by the soothing vocals of Ben Whishaw as the accident-prone bear with a passion for orange condiments. Emily Mortimer replaces Sally Hawkins as Mrs Brown but the rest of the original cast return, plus a cheeky cameo buried in the credits so audiences leave cinemas with contented grins…

New additions to the ensemble elevate director Dougal Wilson’s family-friendly picture. Oscar winner Olivia Colman is heavenly as a musically minded Mother Superior, who sings a little ditty and strums her guitar to energise a throwaway map travel sequence to illustrate Paddington’s journey from London to Lima. She is hysterical, gurning gloriously through physical comedy set pieces and burnishing the word “suspicious” to a lol-worthy lustre. Antonio Banderas also gnaws on scenery, portraying a gold-fixed Spanish sea dog and the ancestral ghosts that haunt him including an Amelia Earhart-esque aviator with tumbling blonde locks.

At home in Windsor Gardens, Paddington (voiced by Whishaw) unexpectedly receives a letter from the Mother Superior (Colman) of the Home for Retired Bears in South America. The holy sister discloses that Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) is behaving peculiarly and may be yearning for a visit from her nephew. Paddington cannot stomach the thought of his closest living relative feeling lonely in her twilight years.

He inspires an impromptu family holiday to Peru with Mr and Mrs Brown (Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer), children Judy (Madeleine Harris) and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) and eccentric housekeeper Mrs Bird (Julie Walters). The mystery deepens when the Browns finally arrive at Aunt Lucy’s Cabin and discover she is missing. “All it takes to light the darkness is one candle of faith,” beams Mother Superior. Cantankerous river boat captain Hunter Cabot (Banderas) and his daughter Gina (Carla Tous) ferry the clan on a grand adventure, bound for a sacred Inca stone circle.

Scripted by Mark Burton, Jon Foster and James Lamont, Paddington In Peru lacks the anarchic twangs of previous instalments but retains the unabashed sweetness and sincerity. Running time feels bloated – perhaps too many marmalade sandwiches. Young members of the Brown family are largely surplus to dramatic requirements and Walters’ scenes are limited but Colman performs the heavy comic lifting with a knowing wink in her wimple. She climbs ev’ry mountain and is one of my favourite things about Wilson’s gung-ho, globe-trotting gallivant.

– Jo Planter