Mary Poppins Returns

So in the lead up to this film, I had some mixed feelings. On one hand, I didn't really want a sequel to Mary Poppins, key word a sequel. I would have been fine if they had reimagined the story but I was weary about a sequel. But then Emily Blunt was attached and I thought, I like Emily Blunt. She's a gem, she might do a pretty good job. Furthermore, I saw the trailer and I liked what I saw. Yes, it wasn't perfect, but it seemed like a good time. And then I started hearing bad reviews of the film. And while I try to avoid reviews before seeing movies like this that I have emotion invested in, I was still worried.

The end result was just like the lead up, mixed feelings. I think overall I had fun with this film. It was a good Disney film to release over the holidays and give that warm fuzzy feeling that Disney is really good at. I think if this movie wasn't in the shadow of the titan that is the 1964 Julie Andrews film, this movie would have been perfectly serviceable if not an instant classic. Unfortunately, the natural feeling is going to be to compare the two films. I'm going to try and provide a fair look for this film based on its own merits, but like anything Disney does these days, this movie is rife with callbacks to greater films and it becomes hard not to compare. I will do my best.

In 1935, the Banks children from the 1964 film, Jane and Michael (played by Emily Mortimer and Ben Whishaw) have grown up. Michael has kids of his own and Jane is fighting for workers rights or something like that.

The family has fallen on hard times financially after the death of Michael's wife Kate and Michael's Children (played by Pixie Davies, Nathaneal Saleh, and Joel Dawson) have needed to grow up quite a bit, helping him around the house as he is struggling to take up a job at the bank just to make ends meet. And in their moment of need, who arrives but Mary Poppins (this time played by Emily Blunt) to come and look after the Banks children. What follows is a musical romp as Mary Poppins, with the assistance of a lamp lighter named Jack (played by Lin Manuel Miranda) helps the Banks family deal with grief, find joy and light even in the darkest of times, as well as help them search for a certificate of shares so that they may keep the house from a (frankly unnecessary) villainous Bank owner (played by Colin Firth).

And when I say musical, I mean full blown, randomly break into song straight up musical. Don't get me wrong, the first Mary Poppins was for sure a musical. But there are two distinct differences between the music in Mary Poppins Returns and the music in Mary Poppins.

First and foremost, I feel there were two or three too many songs in this movie. Not only that, but many of these musical numbers were long and felt out of no where. It's a tell sign in a musical when the dialogue needs to be shaped to set up the next song as opposed to the songs coming naturally with dialogue and I felt like that happened far more than it should have in this film. I also felt like the pure number of songs and how frequent they were, took the impact out of those bigger or more consequential songs. For example, close to the beginning of the movie, there is a big musical number set in this imaginary world of the bathtub. It's a fun song, but it was so grandious, especially for a really insignificant scene in the grand scheme of things, that it overshadowed the songs that followed it, that I think were far too close together to begin with.

And that leads me to the next point in that none of the songs really felt like instant classics the way they felt in the 1964 film. I do realize some of that is subjective. But even the songs I really liked I felt were undercut by the feeling that we just had a song and we're going into another one? And furthermore, I just don't feel like people are going to have these songs marked as iconic the same way the '64 film did. When you think of Mary Poppins, you think really great songs like 'Feed the Birds', 'Supercalifracioulisticespialadocious' (excuse my spelling), 'Chimchimery' or other songs. I didn't feel like any of the songs in this movie really stuck with me the way those did. The songs were performed really well, everyone sings nicely, but overall I think time will tell.

I do believe there was at the very least a hint of authenticity in the execution of this movie. I enjoyed the characters and the actors in this movie do feel invested and having fun with the characters. Of course Emily Blunt never stood of chance of doing a better Poppins than Julie Andrews, but I think she does a really good job nonetheless and she makes the character something of her own while still giving overt nods to Andrews performance.

I liked Lin Manuel Miranda in this film. Yeah he didn't capture the same unique feeling that you got with Dick Van Dyke's Bert in the first film but on his own, I liked him. He's a good singer and he brought a lot of the same joy he brings seemingly all this projects so I liked that. I realized this was his first live action movie role since the release of Hamilton and it'll probably be his break into film. He's charming as he always is, and I really enjoyed his musical performance. Side note: there is a "rap" in this film and you're either going to be indifferent and enjoy what you have in front of you like I did, or you're going to absolutely hate it.

The rest of the actors in the film do a pretty good job. I really liked Ben Whishaw, even though Michael could have been written better. Emily Mortimer is always a fun time, Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, and everyone else is totally serviceable because they're all really good actors who give it their all in everything.

Like I said, not everything works. I don't think Mary Poppins needs a villain and Colin Firth didn't need to be such a blunt villain. Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer could have been given better written characters, and the structure of the plot could have used some more work.

I hate the people who defend certain films by saying, if you didn't enjoy this movie, you just don't know how to have fun. I think people might say that to defend this film and in my opinion that's a cheap excuse to defend subpar films. I don't think Mary Poppins Returns is perfect by any means. Part of that is that it's trying to match a movie that is "practically perfect in every way" to this movie which is practically good is a lot of ways. It just can't be done. I think there are some really creative ideas, songs and visuals in this movie. There's a scene very reminiscent of the sidewalk chalk they jump into into the first film where they go into a porcelain bowl and I thought to myself, wow that's actually a really creative and inventive world to explore. I think the songs while not nearly as memorable are pretty well done and they're performed well.

This is definitely a movie I plan on revisiting and maybe I'll do a review of the original Mary Poppins to do a full comparison just for fun, but as it stands I think if you're looking for a fun light hearted, kind of cotton candy style romp, I think you'll enjoy Mary Poppins Returns.

I think you could look at Mary Poppins Returns in a very cynical way and I wouldn't totally blame you. The story of Mary Poppins has gone from a simple, fairly unknown children's storybook to a widely marketed and highly produced feature film event you have today.

I think more people are protective of the 1964 film because they grew up with it. And yes, you can be cynical about where we've come, how we got there, and comment that we'll never reach that simple magic I think the 1964 film got perfectly.

But, like I said before, I do think there is at least a hint of some authenticity in this sequel. While some of it feels mass produced, I do think it's going to be unfairly compared to the 1964 film and just the way films are made, the technology on hand makes recapturing that magic absolutely impossible. I think there should be an understanding that this movie was never going to be as good as the first one. That was like lightning in a bottle. But that doesn't mean it's bad.

I say go see Mary Poppins Returns with that disclaimer in mind and see what you think yourself. I think you'll probably have more fun than you think.

But those are my thoughts on Mary Poppins Returns. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!