Padding­ton in Peru review – a very well-exe­cut­ed threequel

Box fresh from [checks notes] mas­ter­mind­ing a bunch of John Lewis Christ­mas ads, debut boy Dou­gal Wis­lon makes for a strange­ly apt choice to direct the third instal­ment of the Padding­ton fran­chise in the absence of Paul King (who direct­ed parts one and two and then nicked off to do Won­ka). Pre­mi­um sea­son­al tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing offers a per­fect­ly-primped pack­age of whim­si­cal humour, 110 per cent proof sen­ti­men­tal­ism and an easy-on-the-eye mes­sage espous­ing a love that tran­scends fam­i­ly class and race. Which is just like the Padding­ton movies.

In all seri­ous­ness, parts one and two have for some rea­son been ele­vat­ed to the lev­el of canon­i­cal mod­ern mas­ter­works, even pro­vid­ing a zen punch­line to 2022’s meta Nic Cage com­e­dy, The Unbear­able Weight of Mas­sive Tal­ent – a lofty achieve­ment in and of itself. And while I’m not deny­ing that both are fine pic­tures, it may be down to a lack of decent com­pe­ti­tion that they are held in such rabid­ly high esteem. 

Where parts one and two were tales of a plucky immi­grant con­serve addict find­ing his feet among the raff­ish rap­scal­lions of olde Lon­don town, this new one sees the fur­ry red-hat­ted one sud­den­ly forced to scarp­er back to his home­land of Peru – his adop­tive human fam­i­ly, the Browns, in tow – to search for his age­ing Aunt Lucy who has gone AWOL from her bear nurs­ing home. All that remains is her cracked John Lennon eye­glass­es, and a strange wrist­band con­tain­ing a bear-shaped pendant.

Fair play to screen­writ­ers Mark Bur­ton, Jon Fos­ter and James Lam­ont for try­ing some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent this time around, mount­ing a mad­cap jun­gle escapade that plays like an Eal­ing riff on Heart of Dark­ness. Olivia Col­man was born to play a tooth­some singing nun whose vio­lent­ly ric­tus grin sug­gests that The Lord may not be her true pay­mas­ter, and she duly dings every line read­ing out of the park. Anto­nio Ban­deras, mean­while, rolls up as Hunter Cabot, a swarthy sea cap­tain whose schooner is tricked out with an old fash­ioned gramo­phone à la Herzog’s own opera fiend, Fitzcarraldo. 

Yet Cabot is in fact anoth­er Herzog/​Kinski cre­ation, the glo­ry-seek­ing adven­tur­er Lope de Aguirre, as both are obsessed with the prospect of dis­cov­er­ing and then loot­ing the myth­i­cal land of El Dora­do. Very stealth­ily, Ban­deras has set his stall as one of the finest com­ic per­form­ers in mod­ern film, and his detailed, phys­i­cal­ly-dex­ter­ous work here con­tin­ues down the path he laid with 2021’s Offi­cial Com­pe­ti­tion and 2015’s The Sponge­Bob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.

I some­times have night­mares about the fact that we almost had Col­in Firth as the voice of Padding­ton. No dis­re­spect to the Firth­meis­ter, but that would’ve been a cast­ing foul-up of fran­chise-damn­ing pro­por­tions. Thank­ful­ly, Ben Whishaw is on hand to deliv­er some of the strongest voice­work for an ani­mat­ed char­ac­ter out there, chan­nelling our hero’s adorable sense of uncor­rupt­ed sin­cer­i­ty with the per­fect mix of humour and com­pas­sion. Frankly, I would pay good mon­ey to have Whishaw read the audio­book ver­sions of Hen­ry James nov­els in his Padding­ton voice.

As the gang wend their way down riv­er towards an ancient gate­way, they must con­tend with the local flo­ra and fau­na, plus the fact that their local tour guides might just have some ulte­ri­or motives – Cabot him­self is a con­fused, mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional man­i­fes­ta­tion of the D’Ascoyne clan from Kind Hearts and Coro­nets. Yet where parts one and two tapped into the spe­cif­ic cul­ture and diverse social make-up of Lon­don (and, by exten­sion, most Euro­pean cities), the depic­tion of Peru here is rather thin, rel­e­gat­ed to one stock footage-esque crowd scene of some peo­ple wear­ing chul­los, and then just end­less green, unpop­u­lat­ed jungle.

This is more of an action movie than its pre­de­ces­sors, and Wil­son exe­cutes the set-pieces well, but per­haps with­out that added lay­er of eccen­tric­i­ty that gave Paul King his name. While there are pas­sages of uncer­tain­ty and twists that take their good sweet time to arrive, things come togeth­er beau­ti­ful­ly, and a finale that com­bines a series of clever emo­tion­al call-backs and anoth­er heart­en­ing plea for human empa­thy that’s wor­thy of only the finest John Lewis ad. 

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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