Too cautious and wildly over the top at the same time: Paddington in Peru reviewed

Toy Story or The Godfather? Which way would Paddington in Peru go? Would the third instalment of a much-cherished series prove even better than the second (which was even better than the first)? Or would it be a thumping disappointment? The anti-climactic answer turns out to be a firm ‘neither’. While enjoyable enough, this is a rare example of a film that’s both too cautious and wildly over the top at the same time.

What really powers the film is the goodwill of the audience towards the franchise

It begins with Paddington – voiced as irresistibly as ever by Ben Whishaw – getting a letter from the Reverend Mother at the Home for Retired Bears in Peru where his beloved Aunt Lucy lives. Hearing Lucy is missing him badly, Paddington, of course, wants to visit – and, as luck would have it, Mr and Mrs Brown fancy the trip too.

For Mrs B (Emily Mortimer, replacing Sally Hawkins), it’s a chance for the family to be together now that the children have entered the distant-teenager years. For Mr B (still Hugh Bonneville), it’s an opportunity to show his thrusting young colleagues that he’s not the standard risk-averse middle-aged dad he appears to be (largely because he is).

And so, in the timeless and cheerfully anachronistic way of the franchise, they fly off from 21st-century London in a propellor-driven passenger plane. Arriving in Peru, they duly find a land of wall-to-wall ponchos and panpipes – but when they reach the Home, Lucy isn’t there. Instead, she’s disappeared into the Amazon jungle leaving behind just her bracelet, her specs and a whopping clue that she’s gone to the ancient Inca site of Roomy Rock.