Let’s Hear It for the Bear!

One of the most enjoyable things for a critic is to attend a screening for a family film. There you experience the unfettered happiness, delight and enthusiasm of an audience of applauding children. You’ll find no cynics in that crowd, except perhaps you yourself — a fact that makes you feel almost sheepish about expressing an opinion, except to note whether the film under consideration has any elements that might worry parents.

Well, they can all rest easy. The third Paddington movie in a little over a decade, Paddington in Peru is silly, unflaggingly energetic and warm-hearted, if a little too fussed-over and not entirely fresh. That happens with successful franchises. You can change the dance steps, but not the shoes. Or something like that.

Anyway: As I was exiting the theater, I couldn’t help overhearing a young boy walking just in front of me and loudly chatting about the movie with his mother. I was astonished at the depth of his film knowledge: Having declared that he thought Paddington in Peru deserved at least a B+, he went on to rattle off his thoughts about auteur theory, the importance of VistaVision in The Brutalist and the Emilia Pérez Oscars controversy! 

I couldn’t help but ask this critical prodigy if i could record and post his thoughts on Paddington in Peru. He was happy to oblige me, he said, as he took deep gulps from  a jumbo cup containing an iced beverage the same shade of blue as hospital scrubs.

“I should preface any remarks,” he began, “by saying that Paddington in Peru, while highly enjoyable and a total treat for all tots of all ages, does not match the dazzlement and delights of Paddington 2 from 2018.”

“I was only 2 when I saw that film — I’m turning 9 in May — but I recognized immediately that this was a family classic. Perhaps not on the same exalted plane as Spirited Away, but then what is? Am I right? Paddington 2 turned the adventures of the little CGI bear (voiced with uncloyed sweetness by Ben Whishaw) into a picturesque fantasy of a happy, diverse London, and it provided a comedic field day for Hugh Grant as the villain. His preposterous musical number at the very end remains, and will remain, one of the cherished memories of my movie-going youth.”

“In fact, I think I prefer him in Paddington 2 to Heretic, which to my disappointment didn’t really tackle its theme of religious philosophy with sufficient rigor—”

Just as I was trying to fathom how or why an 8-year-old could have seen that recent horror film, Aaron (not his real name, by his request) suddenly remembered that he was due at a pickleball-and-pizza party in Williamsburg in 40 minutes. But he said he was willing to email me some more substantial comments later. Well, I told him, I was eager to hear whatever he had to say, and off he went with his mother.

For a second I thought I heard him refer to me as “a bald loser,” but that may have been an aural distortion caused by lobby noise. All those kids!

At any rate, Aaron’s comments arrived in due course the following morning, but since they don’t really address the film’s plot in any detail, I will spell that out first:

Paddington returns to his native Peru when he and the Browns, the loving human family who have taken him in, learn that his beloved old Aunt Lucy (The Crown’s Imelda Staunton) has been declining rapidly. 

Arriving at her South American nursing home, however, they’re told by the establishment’s Reverend Superior (Olivia Colman, also of The Crown) that Lucy has vanished into the jungle with no explanation and with nary a trace. The only clue left behind is an annotated map indicating that she’s heading for an ancient, isolated ruin at what you might call a perilous remove upriver. (Or is downriver?)

At any rate, everyone boards a boat piloted by the handsome Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) — not surprisingly, Mrs. Brown (Emily Mortimer, replacing Sally Hawkins from the earlier films), is more easily lured in by Cabot than is her husband (Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville).

Mr. Brown doesn’t want to venture one step further into the jungles of the Amazon, fearing he might encounter the dreaded purple-legged tarantula (and of course he does). But Cabot is by no means what he seems, and the voyage (the Browns soon realize) threatens to be more of a disaster than Dwayne Johnson’s Jungle Cruise.

At this point I’ll append a few of Aaron’s additional comments. They’re certainly insightful, although I’m not sure how helpful his references will be to readers.

“I didn’t find the new film’s jungle settings as captivating, or even exotic, as the London of Paddington 2, although I enjoyed the giant rolling boulder — a sight gag borrowed from Indiana Jones — and I wondered if the white-suited Banderas and his boat weren’t perhaps a clever wink at the famous Wim Wenders epic Fitzcarraldo. Banderas is very enjoyable as the increasingly unhinged pilot who thinks Paddington will lead him to the fabled gold of Eldorado, but the bigger laughs are earned by the wimpled Colman, who strums a guitar for a musical number that salutes both The Sound of Music and The Singing Nun.”

“I will confess, I teared up at the end, first out of concern for Paddington’s fate, then out of relief — although if I remember correctly I may have cried more at Inside Out 2. And you can bet I’m going to sob buckets at the new Mike Leigh movie, Hard Truths! 

“Regardless, I wholly recommend this film!”

Postscript: I was subsequently surprised to discover that Aaron reviews regularly online, and that his reviews — including one of Paddington in Peru, repeating many of the comments I’ve included here — are routinely posted on Rotten Tomatoes. Needless to say, that makes him a rival, so I’m not going to link to his writings.

I will say, though, that I can’t imagine a parent letting their child review, let alone watch, Demi Moore‘s The Substance. You’d be scarred for life. I know I am.