Paddington In Peru (2025)

By: Mike Ward on Thursday, February 13

PG Running Time: 106 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

  • We all could really use a Paddington movie right now.

  • Captures much of the magic of the previous films in the series, creating one of the most rewarding and enjoying trilogies of recent memory.

  • Easy for everyone to enjoy, with a great turn by Olivia Colman, Paddington, voiced wonderfully by Ben Whishaw, is a character full of love and wonder and joy and acceptance.

NO

  • Often dismissed as a kid’s movie, Paddington in Peru is probably the closest to a conventional kid’s movie among the three films in the trilogy.

  • Sometimes people cannot handle a film full of joy and kindness.

  • For those expecting this to reach the heights of Paddington 2, you may find yourself disappointed. However, that is such a high bar to meet - you should temper your expectations and just enjoy the experience.


OUR REVIEW

Like a balm to soothe a chapped soul, Paddington in Peru arrives at a time in the world where I think we all could use a movie featuring the marmalade-loving, soft-spoken, loyal, and trusting teddy bear. With his trademark blue jacket and red bucket hat, there’s simply a sense of calm that washes over you when a Paddington movie works its magic.

With the two previous films, the ease with which those films gave us a sense of calm and comfort is not only due in part from the wonderful voice performance by Ben Whishaw as the titular bear, but also from writer/director Paul King’s tender, kind-hearted approach to the storytelling. After Paddington 2 won the hearts and minds of critics and international audiences in 2017, this third film sees King step back into a storytelling role and hand the reins over to acclaimed music video director Dougal Wilson. 

In his feature film directorial debut, Wilson shows good command of the vibe and atmosphere King has previously created. And while perhaps this trip to Paddington’s roots, at a resort for retired bears in the remote Peruvian jungle, doesn’t quite reach the heights of its predecessors, the smiles are plenty, the joy is bountiful, and yes, there may have been a few tears staining the cheeks as well.

The one thing I love about the Paddington films, different then most anything else I’ve seen, is that Paddington’s naivete is a strength. He’s not empty-headed or aloof, he just sees everything with a sense of wonder and interest. And Wilson’s film lets us see Paddington’s world in much the same way. 

His loving human family, consisting of guardians Henry and Mary Brown (Hugh Bonneville and Emily Mortimer - replacing a departed Sally Hawkins), siblings Judy and Jonathan (Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin), and family housekeeper, Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters), will literally go to the ends of the world for this precocious little bear. When Mary expresses that she, and her family, desperately need a vacation, risk-adverse Henry acquiesces when Paddington learns his beloved Aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton) has gone missing from that Peruvian retirement home.

While a lot of films would want to take the travelogue approach with Peruvian backdrops and landscapes, we sacrifice the potential of lazy sight-seeing for a number of personal interactions and engaging adventure sequences.

Because Wilson steers much of the film through the perspective of the tiny little bear, older audiences will certainly pick up on the motivations of two supporting characters fairly quickly: treasure seeker Hunter Cabot (an over-the-top Antonio Banderas) and retirement home manager, the Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman). As Banderas’ subplot, about finding a lost Incan city of El Dorado, spins its wheels a bit, Colman is terrific and quite funny. This Reverend Mother proves to be equally adept at starting a folksy sing-along as she is flying a two-prop plane into mountainous Peruvian terrain.

The humor is heartwarming, even as the film feels a bit less daring in its originality. When you tell a story through the eyes of a character who sees everything with some degree of amazement, you open up possibilities for a more adventurous score, for example. Or you can use creativity in how you frame certain shots, playing with angles and perspectives that show us a unique look at a somewhat familiar world. Wilson, perhaps because this is his first film, keeps things relatively conventional. And while the film is paced briskly and never bores, more often than not it feels like it matches Henry Brown’s stifling fear of taking chances.

And yet I kinda love this movie. After my screening of Paddington in Peru ended, I posted on BlueSky: “Did an orchard of VFX bears making marmalade … reminding us of the importance of family make me tear up …?”

Yeah, it most certainly did. Because at the end of the day, what Paul King and Dougal Wilson understand is that a character like Paddington wears his kindness and his purity like a badge of honor. He believes in benevolence. And the sad reality is that outside of Paddington’s world, in the so-called “real world,” benevolence, for all intents and purposes, seems to be dying.

Paddington’s temperament, for all his witticisms, obsession with marmalade sandwiches, and willingness to see the good in pretty much everybody, fills an emotional hole. At least for me. Though the world may be on fire all around us, Ben Whishaw’s tender, compassionate voice helps make this little bear one of most wonderful cinematic characters of recent memory.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, Olivia Colman, Antonio Banderas, Imelda Staunton, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, JIm Broadbent, Carla Tous, Hayley Atwell, Joel Fry, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Robbie Gee, Ben Miller

Director: Dougal Wilson
Written by: Mark Burton, Jon Foster, James Lamont (screenplay); Paul King, Simon Farnaby, Mark Burton (screen story)
Adapted from the “Paddington” stories written by Michael Bond
Release Date: February 14, 2025
Sony Pictures