Paddington In Peru

Dear Peru Dance

Paddington In Peru
Directed by Dougal Wilson
UK/France/Japan/USA 2024
Columbia
UK Cinema Release Print.

Paddington In Peru is the third in the staggeringly successful and popular series of films based on Michael Bond’s eponymous bear and let me say up front that, as far as I’m concerned... yes, this is perhaps ‘the least’ of the big screen Paddington adventures. And I think there are some very specific reasons for that, which I’ll probably get into in a minute but, it would also be remiss of me to not say that this is by no means a bad film. Like the previous installments it’s fun, entertaining and has a lot going on for it. It just pales slightly in comparison to those first two but, what other family films don’t these days?

The majority of the former cast are all present and correct, with people like Ben Wishaw doing the voice of Paddington, Hugh Bonneville as Mr. Brown and Julie Walters as Mrs. Bird. That being said, I did really miss one of my favourite modern British actresses, Sally Hawkins, in the role of Mrs. Brown. Alas, my understanding is that she has a medical condition which prevents her from filming overseas at the moment so... yeah, it’s a damn shame because she was my favourite thing about the Paddington movies, to be honest. Having said that though, this is not to detract from her replacement, Emily Mortimer, who steps into her shoes really well and still manages to hold the family unit together as they embark on their adventures.

And it’s a fair old romp. Olivia Colman plays the nun in Peru in charge of the Home For Retired Bears but, as she writes to Paddington, Aunt Lucy has gone missing. So Paddington and the Browns (and Mrs. Bird) all fly off to ‘Darkest Peru’, as it was always known in the books, to find her... accidentally getting involved in a quest to find the lost gold of El Dorado with ‘interested parties’ turning up and coming out of the woodwork, including the captain of a river boat they charter, played by Antonio Banderas. The game is afoot, so to speak and Paddington is off on new adventures, of course.

So, yeah, it’s all very good but I have to say, this one makes a little mistake, I think, in terms of the idea of what makes the Paddington franchise tick. It’s not, I believe, the fault of the new director, who absolutely does an excellent job here... it’s more the fault of the writing or, more specifically, the story idea. You see, Paddington is from Peru and the comedy hijinks he gets involved in are often of the fish out of water variety (or should that be bear out of forest), relying on the bear’s unfamiliarity with the trappings and rituals of British life, it seems to me. However, we don’t really have that charming part of the equation here for this one... the opening of the movie (asides from yet another flashback to Paddington’s childhood) is once again set in London but it really isn’t long before the family have upped stakes and transported themselves to Peru. Consequently, some of the comedy and, I would say, some of the wonderfully creative ideas of its cinematic forebears (pun absolutely intended) are not in abundance in this installment either. It all seems to run out of steam fairly early, once the novelty wears off.

But, honestly, it’s just a minor gripe and I still had a fairly good time with it, it has to be said. And it’s not creatively dead by a long shot. For instance, Banderas’ character speaks to his various ghostly ancestors and the way one of them suddenly appears to him as a 3D version of his painting is masterfully done. I also, truth be told, shed more than a tear at some of the more moving scenes towards the end of the movie which, it’s fair to say, is not unusual in a Paddington movie, for sure.

People who are fans of the previous movies will want to hang around for the post credits and mid-post credits sequences too, where a much loved character from the previous installment appears in two mini scenes, although the actor is only billed as the character name ‘playing himself’ in the end credits.

And that’s me done with Paddington in Peru, I think. Not the best of the series but good enough to keep me entertained and I certainly hope there will be another one in a few years time. Hopefully located firmly in the British Isles this time. If you’re a fan of the previous two then you’re certainly not going to hate it... just don’t raise your expectations too high, I would say.

Wonka

J Arthur

Wonka
Directed by Paul King
USA/UKCanada 2023
Warner Brothers Blu Ray Zone B

As I write these words, Wonka is still just about in the UK top ten cinema attractions, even though I watched it on its official Blu Ray release. Which is no mean feat after over three months in the charts... it would be fair to say that the film has somewhat surpassed any expectations the studio had of it, I should think.

Now, I hated the film Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory and didn’t think much better of Tim Burton’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory either, for that matter (although the score was nice on that one). The reason being that I loved both of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka books as a kid... Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator (which carries on directly from the end of the first book, where Wonka, Charlie and the others burst through the roof of the factory in the elevator and go into adventures in outer space).

Now, I bought Wonka, sight unseen, because I thought it would be a nice family movie to watch over Easter, what with its implied chocolaty theme and, truth be told, I didn’t hate it. True, the moustached and bearded Wonka of the books is still, bizarrely, clean shaven in this film but, at least the film-makers had an excuse for that this time around, seeing as it is a prequel to the original story and Wonka is a much younger chap. I think I am forgiving it a lot because I don’t have to compare it to the original literature on this one. However, buying it for Easter was a mistake because, as it turns out, I was the only one in the household who didn’t think it was pretty terrible.

Now, there are things wrong with it and I think the real problem is nothing to do with the actors... Timothée Chalamet, Olivia Colman, Calah Lane, Sally Hawkins and co are all great but I think the writing, in terms of the story, is possibly at fault here. To explain... the characterisation of a young Wonka seems to me, certainly in terms of his dialogue and thought processes, absolutely spot on. But, the story seems to kind of let things down and we have a film which, to my mind, starts off strong with some good ideas and some acceptably agreeable musical numbers... which then kind of gets weaker and weaker until it kind of fizzles out, for the most part, towards the end.

Chalamet and Hugh Grant (as one of... and indeed all of... the Oompa Loompas) are great, they carry the movie somewhat in places (even though Grant is barely in it) and the songs and score by Joby Talbot (of pop group The Divine Comedy... who I remember seeing as an unknown support act to the great Voice Of The Beehive in Kentish Town in the 1980s) is pretty good. It’s ‘blended’ both in scoring and the flat out restaging of two of the songs from the Gene Wilder film... Imagination and the Oompa Loompa Song but, that actually works quite well and gives certain sections of the movie a charming lift.

But there were times in the whole thing where I did, I confess, find myself quite bored and certainly wondering how it could be making anything like the staggering box office it has because, I would never have guessed children would have sat still for this for large amounts of time.

It looks nice though with some impressively ornate set pieces and a sense of scale which, I suspect, comes off rather better in the cinema than it does for home viewing (which, ironically, is always going to be how the film is remembered). So, yeah, there was much head scratching in this household as to why it’s been so successful but, it’s definitely a big hit with people and so I guess yet another version of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, by way of a sequel (and thus rendering the references to the Gene Wilder movie redundant), can’t be far away. Wonka is not a big hit with me but, I am glad that it’s doing so well, for sure, because it’s obviously found it audience. So that’s alright then... I don’t have to ever watch it again.