Paddington in Peru sees the beloved bear and the Brown family head to the Amazon in search of Aunt Lucy

At the risk of courting controversy, Paddington 2 isn’t a perfect movie — but it was arguably the perfect movie for the cultural moment of 2017.

It was a family film by Frank Capra, driven by a confident belief in the power of kindness while simultaneously struggling with the loss of that belief in a cruel world. Against all odds, writer-director Paul King managed to make an intelligent, heartfelt film on the objectively absurd premise of Paddington Bear going to prison.

Paddington 2 would become the most prominent face of “nicecore”a #resist-era taxonomy that included new art about the goodness of people that was implicitly and explicitly a rebuke of President-elect Donald Trump. Bolstered by its own topicality, it quickly assumed an almost sacred place in popular culture, typically reserved for the likes of The Godfather, and achieved the kind of meme status that resulted in Nicolas Cage cries over the film.

That period now feels like several lifetimes ago. Back then, Disney would be the champion increasingly meaningless milestones about their first gay characters. Later, ‘Musehuset’ made the news for cutting a trans story from an upcoming Disney+ show.

In 2024, nicecore, hopepunk, and the general spirit that once projected revolutionary fervor on children’s movies feels almost dead in the water. In other words, Paddington in Peru had a lot to live up to.

The film has a strong pitch: move Paddington (Ben Whishaw, adorable as always) into an Indiana Jones movie and see what happens.

Its story begins when Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) sends him an invitation to visit her at the Home for Retired Bears; he decides to go back to Peru with the Brown family (this time with Sally Hawkins swapped for Emily Mortimer), and immediately discovers that his only living relative has disappeared under peculiar circumstances.

After digging for clues, Paddington discovers that his aunt has apparently been consumed by a quest to find the lost city of El Dorado, rumored to contain a bounty of priceless gold. Paddington and his family hop on a ship captained by the dashing hunter (Antonio Banderas, who has a ball) and his daughter Gina, and head deep into the Amazon rainforest to find the mythical metropolis.

While you can’t fault the series for trying an old-fashioned adventure on for size, the change of scenery (as well as a change in creative management, with director Dougal Wilson replacing Paul King) lacks the richness of Paddington’s Britain.

The previous films turned London into a sprawling, picture-book playground that embedded magic in the everyday; meanwhile, the South American wilderness is reduced to a generic tropical backdrop, bereft of the boundless wonder that its real-life counterpart evokes.

For the first time in the series, Paddington in Peru takes a turn for the fantastic (despite the existence of talking bears) by incorporating sinister bushy creatures and sacred Inca stone circles into his travels. It’s a significant shift that should open up a world of possibilities, but its genre elements are mostly just set-dressing.

At least the film’s expanded scale works to its advantage; Watching Paddington stumble into trouble invariably becomes more fun as the stakes escalate to treacherous rapids and crumbling ancient ruins.

The refreshed supporting cast is also very endearing. Banderas gives an appropriately confused performance as a former adventurer haunted by the ghosts of his ancestors, all of whom died in pursuit of El Dorado. Half of his performance is spent talking to himself in fancy dress. (For the record, Paddington’s villains don’t get more iconic than gun-toting Nicole Kidman and a serious bob — apologies to Hugh Grant.)

Olivia Colman marks the other busy new addition to the Paddington universe as Reverend Mother, the director of Aunt Lucy’s bear haven, but feels too predictably cast to really impress as a saccharine, singing nun. Like the film’s central character, Colman has become a British cultural export on the verge of overexposure in recent years.

Paddington in Peru is far from bad; it just so happens that it’s also far from the sky-high standards of its predecessors. The film is still very heartfelt and tear-jerking, even in an opening sequence that depicts the Brown family growing up and growing apart. Paddington’s return to his homeland is also steeped in bittersweetness, raising questions about where exactly the western bear fits in.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 presents this season’s second major tri-quel about a CGI animal outsider and his human family. But while it boasts blockbuster bombast, its sentimentality feels synthetic by comparison, most evident in how the climaxes of both films make emotional callbacks to their respective first films.

As long as children and adults alike demand a good cry at the cinema, Paddington films will always have their place.