Review: MARY POPPINS RETURNS Is an Enjoyable Magical Journey
Mary Poppins is my mom’s favorite movie. I used to watch it all the time with her when I was growing up, and I came to love it as well. The original film holds a special place in my heart, as I’m sure it does for many of you as well.
That being said, I was very much looking forward to seeing Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns. The fact that we would get to see this wonderful character brought to life on the big screen again in a sequel that would focus on the Banks children all grown up dealing with their own life struggles intrigued me.
In the film, we find Michael Banks trying to keep his life and family together after the death of his wife a year before the story picks up. Banks ends up falling behind on his loan payments and is in danger of losing his home. His sister Jane is around to help him, but with the weight of the stress, depression, and loss that he’s feeling, there’s only one person that can help steer his life back into happiness and that person is Mary Poppins.
She comes flying in on a kite to look after Michael, his kids, and Jane. As you might imagine, things get a little weird and wild with Poppins around, and while Michael and Jane wonder if the things they experienced as kids were real or not, Michael’s kids are being whisked away into imaginative adventures and are inspired to try and help their dad save this house that he and Jane grew up in.
The film delivers an entertaining and magical journey that most fans will love. The cast of the film is fantastic! Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins, Ben Whishaw and Michael, Emily Mortimer as Jane, Lin-Manuel Miranda and the kids were all absolutely wonderful. The film also featured smaller roles for Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury, Meryl Streep, and Dick Van Dyke, who still had that energetic sparkle in his eyes.
I do have to say, though, that the film was nowhere as good as the original movie. I hate to say that I left the theater a little underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good film with an admirable and inspirational heartfelt message that resonated with me, but there were a few aspects about the story that didn’t work in my opinion, especially in the third act.
The third act is where everything started to fall apart and things started to really not make sense. You see, throughout the whole film Mary Poppins is inspiring and slightly nudging the people around her in the story to do the work to make a difference in their lives. Then at the end she pretty much just gets frustrated that no one is doing it fast enough so she does it herself.
I won’t get into the details of everything, but while most of the film was a solid and enjoyable film, it lost me at the end. There was just… too much. Sometimes less is more. Maybe you’ll see what I’m talking about when you see the movie.
As for the new musical numbers that were featured in the film, they were solidly good, and I think that Disney fans will fall in love with many of the songs.
In the end, though, if you’re a fan of Mary Poppins, I recommend you check it out because it is filled with that childlike and magical wonder that we all loved about the first movie.
