¨Paddington in Peru¨, takes great strides from its predecessors and falls flat in all regards. Mind you, these falls aren´t the comical kind that Paddingtons shenanigans result in. No, these falls are not the least bit funny and only go to show how low the series have gone.

In this third installment “Paddington in Peru” to find his Aunt Lucy who has disappeared;however, this is misleading as Paddington doesn’t really travel to Peru but sees a few snapshots of iconic vistas in Peru and then spends the rest of the nearly two hour runtime in what appears to be computer-generated forests. Previous films in the franchise had a great many differences in their scenes and environments and yet all were interconnected within London. This is the opposite in “Paddington in Peru”, despite taking place in one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, the movie lacks any semblance of diversity.

It is not only the environments that have taken a heavy hit but also our more iconic characters such as the Brown family. In the first two films the Browns are Paddington’s found family who would help him and then be helped in turn, yet in this film they act not as his family but as a subplot that we can check in on every now and then. In prior films, each of the Brown family characters would have their own unique hurdles they must overcome. In Paddington 3 this was attempted but implemented poorly. Mrs. Brown, the mother of the Browns, laments over her family and how it is drifting apart, wishing to bring them together. This is seemingly identical to the prior Paddington films but with a small flaw that ruins her otherwise decent storyline entirely. Sally Hawkins, the actress for Mrs. Brown is replaced with Emily Mortimer, a tragic mistake that isn’t really the movie’s fault but just can’t be overlooked. Having seen the prior films in the franchise it’s almost impossible to get accustomed to a completely new Mrs. Brown, one of the lead supporting characters who always cared for her family. Mortimer does a fine job as playing Mrs. Brown but it still feels strange to see an iconic character be replaced.

Mr. Brown, the father of the household, also has a reused character hurdle: he needs to be more “adventurous”. This, similar to Mrs. Brown’s hurdle, has already been implemented in prior films in the franchise. However, this implementation doesn’t work as well because unlike a family drifting closer or further apart, one’s maturity is far more of a stagnant thing, something that can’t really be lost. Yet Mr. Brown proves otherwise as he continues to lose any and all character progression he had gained in the previous film to repeat the process again.

The filmmakers do tread new ground by not giving any hurdles or characterization for that matter to the kids, instead using them for the occasional joke. The majority of the hurdles our characters must overcome in this film are either reused, nonexistent, or just don’t make sense. When it’s this obvious that the writers cared so little for these characters it’s hard to care about them as well.

*Spoilers*

This film actually attempts something quite novel, having two twist villains. However this would go on to only weaken these villains that as we then must split twice the backstory, spending half the movie with one and then attempting to have a grandstand with another. This doesn’t work as the villain I care about has already been put aside for a new one I know little to nothing about besides their ten-second backstory.

Paddington 3 continues the trend of not caring about its characters, attempting to have both a villain redemption story and an utterly evil villain, trying to have their cake and eat it too. The ending is the funniest part of the movie but isn’t worth the wait. El Dorado, the mythical city of gold our characters have been searching for throughout the entire film, is actually a bear sanctuary with thousands of golden ripe oranges. Cute, but they then attempt to make it a sappy one as Paddington must choose between his bear family, the ones who essentially abandoned him in the first movie, or the Browns family that took him in. If you seriously can’t figure out which family he ends up staying with then maybe this film is actually your pace but to a film connoisseur as I it is less than easy to care little for hundreds of CGI bears.

One can only pray that in the fourth movie Paddington stays his furry behind in London and at most travels to Bradford.

Simply put, Paddington 3 is a boring waste of time without a story to tell that does nothing other than lay ruin to an otherwise quite good series of films. I give this film a hearty 2/5, save time and just watch the first movie.

Title: Paddington in Peru
Studio: Studiocanal
Main cast: Emily Mortimer, Ben Wishaw, Hugh Bonneville
Rating: 2/5
Runtime: 1h 46m
Where to watch: Prime Video