A nice little holiday with our favorite British bear.
A lot has changed for the Brown family. The bear Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) finally has his passport which makes him a British citizen, the patriarch Henry (Hugh Bonneville) has an American client (Hayley Atwell) who wants him to “embrace the risk,”the mother Mary (Emily Mortimer, replacing Sally Hawkins) has taken up painting, the daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris) wants to go to a farther college, the son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) takes up gaming and invents machines to give him a bad of chips and close the door, and their housekeeper Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters) tries to fix the fuse box. In summation, they’re all too busy to be close together.
So, there has to be something to bring the family back together again. A trip to Peru to visit Paddington’s Aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton), who isn’t doing well, as warned by the Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman). But just as the family arrives, she disappears. And this sets things up for the third entry “Paddington in Peru,” which is a much better title than “Paddington 3.”
There’s something about this franchise that I admire more than the James Corden “Peter Rabbit” movies, and that something is its combination of wit and heart. It’s not mean-spirited or indulging or a waste of CGI effects. It needs the bear for the right family values. How he struggles to adjust to new devices, how he manages to stay loyal to his family, how he keeps his spirits up, and how he keeps his marmalade habit in balance.
As usual with an adventure movie, there’s someone obsessed with treasure, and that someone is the family’s guide Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas), who believes that Aunt Lucy may have stumbled upon El Dorado. Banderas also plays his conquistador ancestor, who appears basically as his imaginary friend, while Hunter’s daughter Gina (Carla Tous) tries to be his voice of reasoning.
Some of Paddington’s accidents are funny, while some feel tedious. Sometimes the script gets predictable, while other times, it can be heartwarming. And there’s enough exuberance to keep kids and their parents entertained. I liked how Paddington rides a river in his umbrella, because it reminded me of a scene in “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.” Two different bear stories, but still lovable in their own aspects. And Whishaw still delights us with voice and whimsy as Paddington.
We also have Mr. Brown giving a tarantula an “Arachnophobia” stare down, which I find a bit unsettling due to my arachnophobia, and we also have Dougal Wilson taking over for Paul King as the director. But we still have the inventive style and its goofy, but lovable appeal that makes the franchise enjoyable.
Paddington is a bear who can survive the 2020s as he did in the 2010s, just as Wallace and Gromit proved their thriving in the current decade in “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.” They’re all British characters we still come to know and love, and time has been kind of them. And so have we.
