"Paddington in Peru" Passes for Pleasant Entertainment

The youngsters have to start somewhere, so let them start here. They don’t know it, but they are getting an innocuous version of a Spielberg movie.

“Paddington in Peru” really strikes me as Indiana Jones for six-year-olds, a search for lost family, great treasure, and ancient history, rolled into one.

Except the protagonist is the most pleasant of English bears, and not a rascal professor-archaeologist. Well, as always, he’s a marmelade-loving adventurer.

That’s a sizeable part of acts 2 and 3 of “Paddington 3,” the search for the Spielberg trifecta, which also doubles as a vacation for the Brown family and as a sly tourism ad for Peru, whose country may see a spike in visitors just because of this film.

The family goes off to Peru because Paddington’s Aunt Lucy is said to be missing him. She’s forlorn, or so says the too-happy Peruvian-based nun (Olivia Colman) who runs a remote retirement home for bears in the Peruvian jungle. Because the Browns don’t have much better to do, it’s the perfect time for a vacation.

Meanwhile, Paddington — a very feint symbol of a U.K. immigrant tracking down his place of origin — can go find his tribe.

When Paddington and the Browns arrive at the convent and retirement-home in Peru, they discover Aunt Lucy is missing, presumed to have taken off into the jungle. They hire a boat and attempt to track her down.

This boat is run by Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas), a gold-crazy captain who is willing to abandon his daughter in the jungle to find the fabled El Dorado. He’s also probably schizophrenic.

But this is the Paddington series: everything is so innocuously presented as a children’s-show fantasy that all the bigger issues touched on here just wash away, issues like immigration and identity, except for the crankiest of literary critics who will still see value-laden assumptions everywhere. (Guilty as charged, your Honor!)

I said earlier that Indiana Jones is brought up here, and certainly it is: expect a boulder to chase down the protagonist eventually, after a mysterious stone statue is found and Paddington is made to find treasure. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” hints are everywhere.

But squint hard and you will see — bizarrely, in my view — Herzog’s “Aguirre, Wrath of God.” Certainly the schizo-talk with the ghost in a knight suit is nothing but “Aguirre.”

Except, again, this is the Paddington series, where the worst thing that can happen is that people don’t mind their manners.

I doubt this movie will strongly satisfy most who loved the first two films, especially the second Paddington. But it may suffice for them. Director Dougal Wilson competently offers fine lessons in basic film grammar, and there are a couple of nice impressionistic flourishes in the film. Meanwhile, Paddington looks cuter and fuzzier than ever, though retaining enough British masculinism such that he’s no toy or kid’s plaything. At the crucial hour, he’ll roars mightily.

Yet going to Peru means that the Browns aren’t given much to do besides acting as onlookers in reaction shots. They are window-dressing here, especially the kids, who don’t match the acting verve of Colman especially.

Paddington’s a safe character in a safe franchise now. Maybe that should be welcome. Our local theater just endured a several-month onslaught of horror movies. Nothing could be further from that spirit than a Paddington film, where even the nasty spiders within it seem pet-able.

I was charmed some of the time, but then again, there’s nothing cerebral or cognitively stimulating about this one at all. In my usual test of whether a film makes me feel smarter or dumber, this one’s on the latter end of things.

Then again, if I had young children, I could not beat going to another Paddington movie above all the other offerings this year.