The lush sun shines on a perfectly round, juicy orange. The glimmer of the citrus shines like the future of our growing cub Paddington. Paddington has experienced a heartening and tremulous journey over the course of his first two highly praised films, with the new addition of “Paddington In Peru.” He continues his streak of cuteness in the face of adversity.
In the face of a banal and immature family cinema, 2014’s “Paddington” welcomed a furry face that became beloved by all four quadrants of both cinephiles and casual viewers. Three years later, “Paddington 2” became the principle of “kid’s movies.” While the cap of the trilogy’s juice is loaded with sweetness, it’s missing some of the ingredients that carried the first two.
Let’s forget about “Wonka.” Screenwriter Paul King has become the new face of live-action animation through the bear with British sensibilities, and with a $90 million budget, compared to the previous film’s $40 million. Fans were excited to see what bombastic situations would befall in his homeland. The stark anticipation has already garnered over $80 million overseas before its U.S. release.
After the Brown family and Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) travel to Peru to visit his aunt Lucy, they find her missing from the home of retired bears. They decide to set out on an expedition to find her. Amongst their travels, they meet characters full of personality such as a suspiciously well-meaning nun, Reverend Mother (Olivia Coleman), a sly talking treasure hunter, Hunter (Antonio Banderas) and his loving daughter, Gina (Carla Tous).
The film is full of stunning visual effects that, at times, make the audience question reality. From the bear’s thick coats to the mouthwatering food models, the movie’s VFX was a definite highlight. Like the first two movies, the bravura cross animation comes back in an oil painting coming to life that explains how the Browns have been more distant as the kids get older. It’s a visually attractive touch.
While the story is fetchingly optimistic and touching on familiar themes of the franchise, like family and the question of what home means, the film is monotonous in its telling. It’s dry compared to the rest of the franchise. There are many scenes of the characters moving from location to location that could have been cut down or used to tell more jokes. Even with the jokes, the humor is less than desired for a child’s attention span and even less so for adults. Oddly enough, when the jokes landed, they landed smoothly.
King also forgets one of the main themes of the movie: the family’s ongoing unraveling, which gets insufficiently lofted in at the end, resulting in a near saccharine tear-jerking ending that would make even the most hard-bitten watcher’s eyes water.
While the story is aggressively so-so, performances from Coleman and Banderas keep things entertaining. Coleman sings a pitch-perfect, quirky tune about Paddington’s arrival and Banderas’s comically schizophrenic character never gets old.
Paddington’s third installment gets the job done while repurposing tropes from the previous two films. Luckily, these bits don’t get stale or tired, but with the hour and 46-minute run time, it was begging to be more than it actually was.
