'Paddington in Peru' is a perfectly bear-able sequel

But the beloved franchise might be running out of steam.

If there’s one important lesson that the “Paddington” movies teach our children, it’s this: Never trust a character actor. Sure, you might run into a kindly Jim Broadbent. But you might just as easily tangle with a dastardly Hugh Grant. Better to be safe.

The third movie in the series, “Paddington in Peru,” has not one but two Oscar-nominated character actors, Antonio Banderas and Olivia Colman, for everyone’s favorite bear in a floppy hat (Ben Whishaw) to tussle with. One of my quibbles with the film is that, following Grant’s bravura performance in “Paddington 2,” the new movie gets a little too high on its own marmalade supply. The antics of the human actors pull focus too often away from Paddington and Whishaw’s gentle, magical vocal performance.

But this is still a Paddington movie, and if it doesn’t live up to the first two films, it’s still bright, cheerful, refreshingly un-cynical fun.

Paddington is happily living in London with his human family, the Browns, but still has “mixed feelings” about his life, as he misses his home in Peru and, in particular, his adopted Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton). As in everything else, “Paddington in Peru” handles the immigrant experience with compassion and tact in a way that even the smallest viewer will understand.

When Paddington gets word that Aunt Lucy has gone missing, he determines to travel back to Peru and find her. The Browns, unexpectedly, decide to join him – father Henry (Hugh Bonneville) is trying to take more risks in life, while mother Mary (Emily Mortimer, subbing in for Sally Hawkins) wants one last family adventure before their two kids go off to college.

In Peru, they meet the daffy guitar-playing nun (Colman) who runs the Home for Retired Bears where Aunt Lucy was living. And a riverboat captain, Hunter Cabot (Banderas) agrees to take the family upriver to Lucy’s last known location.

But Cabot has his own agenda – he’s obsessed with finding the Lost City of Gold that has eluded his family for centuries. In one clever bit, Banderas also plays all of Cabot’s ancestors, including a Spanish conquistador and an Amelia Earhart-like pilot.

The trip includes lots of slapstick comedy as Paddington and the family encounter raging rapids, mysterious ruins and other perils. It’s all diverting enough in a sort of generic sub-”Indiana Jones” kind of way, and the color palette of the Peruvian scenes is bright and vivid. But it feels like a mistake to pull Paddington out of the cozy, stylized London of the first two films for CGI jungle antics. Even with a new director (Dougal Jones) taking over for Paul King, this feels like a franchise that is running out of steam.

Banderas and Colman do give it their all in playing delightfully silly characters, and there are some clever gags in the finale, including a direct and unabashed Buster Keaton homage. More importantly, the ending does finally deliver the emotion that feels missing from too much of “Paddington in Peru,” as Paddington has to decide between his two homes. The movie could have used a lot more of that, and a lot less splashing around.

“Paddington in Peru” opens Thursday in theaters. In Madison, it will play at Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, AMC Fitchburg and Flix Brewhouse Madison.