Paddington In Peru

Capping a trilogy after two top tier films often proves a difficult task.

It’s easy to count those trilogies that keep the quality across three films consistent (LotR, Toy Story, Indiana Jones, Dark Knight) and much harder to count those that don’t quite get there because there’s just too many.

Paddington In Peru is the latest to fall foul of this and, whilst a solid movie in its own right, doesn’t stack up to its predecessors.

In fairness, having films of the quality of the first two is, in itself, something to appreciate. A beloved institution doesn’t always lead to brilliant movies, especially of the ‘family’ variety, and the lightness of touch, hilarity, charm and brilliance of Paddington 1 and 2 stands them as modern classics of the form.

This third entry contains those aforementioned qualities but is just lacking that intangible ‘something’ which marked the first two out.

Perhaps this is down to that classic sequel trope of ‘take the character out of their natural setting’. In this case, it’s actually ironically taking Paddington into his natural setting but, nonetheless, the ‘goes on holiday’ format often just serves to mean more actual plot and exposition is needed to grease the wheels and you lose some of the laughs.

The MacGuffin-y adventure plot works fairly well but characters aren’t quite given their requisite growth moments that could come from throwing them into this environment and story.

Likewise, whilst there is a lot of fun and frolics to be had, nothing quite grabs as hard as the last film.

Olivia Colman and Antonio Banderas pull double villain duty and both have a lot of fun (Colman runs away with the film at times with her side-splitting expressions) but it leaves you wanting a little more of both and their arcs fall a little flat at the end.

It’s the same with the Brown family and our titular hero. It all just sort of goes as you’d expect which is pleasant enough family and children fodder but doesn’t prove to be more than the sum of its parts.

A solid trilogy capper (assuming this is the last of this franchise) and another pleasant excursion to be had with the lovable Paddington. Just not on the same level as its forebears (pun intended).

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