Paddington in Peru

With the success of the first two Paddington films, it’s inevitable that a third film, Paddington in Peru, would follow to make it a trilogy. While I was unfamiliar with Paddington when this film was announced, I quickly became a fan after watching the first two films in anticipation, and hoped that the third would maintain the same level of quality despite a change in director. After seeing it opening weekend, although it doesn’t quite reach the same heights as the previous films, it does nonetheless feel like a worthy successor to the original duology.

Paddington 2

As with the first Paddington film, I will admit to not seeing Paddington 2 when it first released, mainly due to how silly it looked in the marketing. After actually watching the original recently, I found myself eager to watch the sequel at the next opportunity, enough to actually track down and read a library copy of the original A Bear Called Paddington book in the interim. I can not only speak more confidently of the first film’s faithfulness to the source material, I can also say that I enjoyed the second film, which I rented through Amazon Prime Video, even more than its predecessor.

Paddington

I will admit to not having much familiarity with the British children’s literature icon Paddington Bear, though I was at least aware of him with his iconic red hat and blue coat. It’s because of this unfamiliarity that I did not see the 2014 film adaptation Paddington, or its sequel Paddington 2, when they first came out, though I had been meaning to watch them after hearing how good they are. With the upcoming US release of the third film, Paddington in Peru, I finally got around to watching the first film to see how good it was, and found it to have exceeded my expectations.