The Incomplete Guide to Paddington in Peru and Octopussy
In which Paddington travels to Peru and James Bond dresses as a clown
The Incomplete Guide to Paddington in Peru
Paddington 2 is a masterpiece, so its entirely understandable that the follow-up has taken a while, and also differentiated itself from the first two entries by dropping the numbering from the film’s title. I’ve always felt that films should be banned from just having numbers in their titles. I think they should be required to prove that they have a story to tell by giving the story a title. Paddington in Peru does exactly what it says on the tin, it ditches the cosy bumbling around London for putting Paddington into Peru for an adventure with the family.
Unfortunately, it does this to its detriment. Paddington as character has worked so far because he is the best things about Britain: tradition, manners, whimsy, in the form of a stranger joining the community and adding more to it. This time, Paddington has received a letter from Aunt Lucy asking him to visit Peru, and he’s just received his passport, after the scene from the trailer that we’ve all seen where Paddington can’t sit still in a photobooth opens the film.
This passport has somehow become famous because it’s been newsworthy that the Home Office sent a film a real passport to use. The good-humoured people of whats left of twitter all remarked about how the home office would never be so welcoming in real life, others decided feign outrage about improper use of taxpayers money, but the government helping filmmakers make authentic props and costumes is more standard than people think.
Anyway, Paddington convinces the Browns - very easily - that they should go to Peru and check in on his Aunt Lucy; its pleasantly surprising and confident in this approach, jettisoning almost all of the supporting cast outside of the Browns from the first two films to quick cameos so that we can get to Peru as quickly as the screenplay can allow. A lot time and emphasis therefore lands on Olivia Colman was the all-singing all-dancing and not-at-all-suspicious Reverend Mother in charge of the retired bears home, and Antonio Banderas as Hunter Cabot, who leads the browns on their expedition into the amazon to find the missing Aunt Lucy.
Peru by name, Peru by nature
The great thing about this is that we get a much more natural reason for the Browns, a family where the kids are at an age of departing the nest to spend more time together in an occasionally claustrophobic river boat. It’s a nice and natural development and tightens the film up a bit where the first two films would perhaps depend a bit much on celebrity cameos. It also means that Paddington spends more time with them, not separated by an imprisonment this time, and the adventure with the family is full of frolics. It’s also a great way to avoid direct comparisons to the previous instalments, which toured the characters around every tourist spot in London in their efforts to solve mysteries in the vein of Young Sherlock Holmes adventures.
Also, by all accounts from the behind the scenes, the whole thing was filmed on the volume, with a second unit getting all of the Peru footage in advance, and most of the cast ‘never leaving the M25’. Given that they’re used to acting around the glorious CGI bear, it’s a remarkable feat and canny bit of filmmaking from Dougal Wilson, directing his feature film debut here, whilst Paul King went off to make millions with Wonka last year in what like a spiritual follow up to Paddington. It’s a hell of task for a debut, but Wilson’s experience is from some of the iconic and occaionally heart-wrenching John Lewis Christmas adverts, including The Long Wait and Monty the Penguin. He’s actually quite an apt choice for the franchise that loves to mix British sentimentality and family frolics.
A lot of the familiar supporting characters from London are jettisoned to cameos, Peter Capaldi’s Mr Curry is entirely absent, and the didactic band are back home. Dougal Wilson is making his own and very separate installment here.
As they continue down the river into the Amazonian jungle, the camera occasionally stays distant, and boldly, this film at times feels like an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The plot eventually reveals that Paddington’s family history ties into the real world legends of the hidden city of El Dorado. The Peruvian jungle is vast but generic and claustrophobic for the family.
Its especially close quarters for Antonio Banderas and the literal ghosts of his ancestors urging him down a dark path to acquire the gold of El Dorado. Most of the films funny material goes to him, and it’s all good, but not quite reaching the heights of the great Hugh Grant in Paddington 2. Everyone is still as great as they were before, Hugh Bonneville in particular gets some fantastic slapstick, as does the curious, formidable and surprisingly knowledgeable about underhand activities, Julie Walters as Mrs Bird.
Paddington in Peru does fall short of its predecessors in sheer emotional impact, despite its best efforts. Maybe that’s the problem: this is a character who affects people so profoundly because he’s desperate to see the best in anyone and any situation, and I am too, looking at this film. It’s still wonderful and charming and full of great comedy and lovely family moments, even if it does have a sense of just being another one. I am grateful a children’s film has such adult cinematic language, strong family films, and attracts a cast of giants from Boneville to Oliva Colman. Children’s cinema is thriving as long as Paddington is.
Paddington in Peru is in cinemas now
Octopussy in 2024
Will Bond's Indian adventure soar or stumble, Vanessa investigates.
I’m continuing our 2024 Bond rewatch project - and this time, at double speed and in extra time! Yes, it’s a double feature as we wrap up the Moore Bond tenure. As always, if you’re interested, you can catch up on previous reviews with my takes on social mores, plot realism, and travel logistics in our Substack archive.
The film quickly dispatches 009 in a clown costume during the opening scene - foreshadowing later events. Rita Coolidge delivers "All Time High," diplomatically avoiding the film's title in her dreamy vocals. M has been recast, but not favourably so, while our final Bond girl is Maud Adams in her second (confirmed) outing.
Not clowning around
Most of the action takes place in India, where the film leans into stereotypes, such as snake charming, which would have been banned more than 10 years ago, at this point. The film's gender politics are fascinatingly complex for its era. Bond takes a progressive stance on Octopussy's women-only palace, arguing against discrimination, where nowadays conservatives fight for single-sex spaces. The "girl power" of scantily-clad circus performers defeating henchmen has me brooding over whether it’s empowering or not.
One of my biggest pains in the film is its treatment of animals. Khan clearly regularly rides elephants, with bespoke baskets from which he can hunt. The circus too parades elephants and bears on leashes, and a tiger cub is passed around like a puppy. Ironically, the birthplace of animal welfare was India, where Emperor Ashoka enacted laws forbidding hunting. Yet it’s only come to prominence over the last 10-20 years in the circus scene.
Ultimately, Bond’s on murky ground. (1/5)
This won’t fly here
The film swings wildly between plausible tradecraft and outlandish action - besides the unfathomable idea that a Russian general would freelance for a nuclear warhead to go off in territory he wanted to conquer. The Fabergé egg homing device mirrors modern bluetooth tags, and Bond rids himself of leeches with fire; yet he swings on limp vines with the oft-used Tarzan yell accompanying him, and has superhuman grip strength in his final showdown with Gobinda on Khan’s aeroplane.
Some scientific elements ring true - Khan's scepticism about sodium pentothal as a truth serum is appropriate, though his suggestion of an alternative of curare with a psychedelic compound in addition can’t be substantiated. The film's claims about the blue-ringed octopus (hapalochlaena) being "invariably fatal in seconds" also ring true, unless medical attention can be provided. It seems we are skirting on the edge of believability here. (2/5)
The Gag Tour
The film spans from an unknown Cuban horse racing course, via India, to East Germany (though Berlin and Chemnitz’ Karl-Marx-Stadt don’t really get a look in, having been filmed in England), and back to India. While you won’t find the Taj Mahal in Delhi, or Udaipur, where the majority of the film takes place in, the luxury Shiv Niwas Hotel, where Bond first stays (which you can do for less than £200 a night), will kick off your Bond trail successfully.
Octopussy Palace is the Taj Lake Palace Hotel, where a night costs you a more pricey £520 a night, so you might be better off staying on land. The Monsoon Palace, which Kamal Khan lives in, can be visited, and while tickets can’t seem to be bought online, it seems to be less than £3 per person for foreigners.
For the German sojourn, Bond steals a car in what looks like Braunfels, though no filming took place there - which makes sense, as it’s deep in what was West Germany. You could still have a meal at the Greek restaurant in the hotel that inspired the backdrop. Feldstadt, too, was never a US Air Force base in Bavaria (as we can tell from the police cars with the state coat of arms). This one’s more a journey of the mind, than anything else. (1/5)
Octo-pass-y
The film has a reputation for tonal whiplash, which is not unfounded as seen above, and becomes even harder to overlook when squeezed between the grounded For Your Eyes Only and the through-and-through zany View to a Kill (not “From a View to a Kill”, as the end credits suggest). While producers had been eyeing up a replacement for Roger Moore here already, but wheeled him out as competition for Sean Connery’s Never Say Never, he gets one more shot, when he should have hung up his hat before this outing already. (1/5)
Octopussy is available on Amazon Prime