Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
Cast
- Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins
- Lin-Manuel Miranda as Jack
- Ben Whishaw as Michael Banks
- Emily Mortimer as Jane Banks
- Pixie Davies as Anabel Banks
- Nathanael Saleh as John Banks
- Joel Dawson as Georgie Banks
- Julie Walters as Ellen
- Meryl Streep as Topsy
- Colin Firth as William Weatherall Wilkins
- Dick Van Dyke as Mr. Dawes Jr.
- Angela Lansbury as Balloon Lady
Director
- Rob Marshall
Writer (based upon the "Mary Poppins" stories by)
- P.L. Travers
Writer (screen story by)
- David Magee
- Rob Marshall
- John DeLuca
Cinematographer
- Dion Beebe
Editor
- Wyatt Smith
Composer
- Marc Shaiman
Family, Fantasy, Music
131 minutes
I don’t envy the filmmaker remaking or
creating a sequel to a beloved classic children’s story. Yet numerous
directors and stars are lining up for this latest craze, and especially
the people over at Disney. Starting with “Alice in Wonderland,”
the studio has been raiding its vaults to tap into its audience’s
entrenched nostalgia, offering familiar characters and storylines in a
spate of live-action remakes (“Cinderella” and “Beauty and the Beast”),
sequels (“Christopher Robin”) and spinoffs (“Maleficent”) that have been met with mixed reactions.
The latest movie to join the revisited ranks is Rob Marshall’s
sequel to one of the most recognized musicals in the Disney canon,
“Mary Poppins.” The bar for this project is pretty high, since Marshall
has to both entice newcomers and win over ardent fans with a loyalty to
the Sherman Brothers’ catchy songs, memorable performances from Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke and a heartwarming story of how one stern-faced nanny reunites a family.
Unfortunately,
“Mary Poppins Returns” falls quite short of being practically perfect
in every way. The cast puts on a good show, but very little can be done
to salvage the forgettable numbers by Marc Shaiman
and Scott Wittman and dance routines that already look dated. A handful
of colorfully charming scenes liven up the movie’s dull events, but its
copycat story arc isn’t strong enough to stand apart from the original.
Back in the magical world of Mary
Poppins’ England, things are bleak. A post-war fog has settled in 1930’s
London, threatening the Banks’ family home unless they can find the
MacGuffin—sorry, I meant proof that the dearly departed old man Banks
left behind enough shares in company stock to cover the cost of the
mortgage and save their house from foreclosure. The now grown Banks
children Michael (Ben Whishaw) and Jane (Emily Mortimer)
look through the attic, desks and shelves, digging up old childhood
relics like their broken kite with their mother’s “Votes for Women”
sash, but no form to save their home. Michael’s oily boss (Colin Firth)
at his dad’s old bank extends the family’s deadline to come up with the
receipt or they will finally lose the home. His three children—Anabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh) and Georgie (Joel Dawson)—try
to help or cheer up Michael since the family is still reeling from the
death of their mother that year. Unfortunately, there’s only so much
children can do in these grown-up matters.
Just as the Banks family is once again in chaos, who should arrive but the sharp and resourceful Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt)?
She invites herself in, much like she does in the original, and
brightens the children's day while also hiding their adventures from
their beleaguered dad. Her Bert-like friend, Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda),
is part of an army of lamplighters called leeries who have seemingly
taken the place of chimney sweepers in this economy. This time, the
charismatic city worker doesn’t have a fondness for Mary (not in that
way, it seems) but for the spirited activist in the family, Jane. Jack
sometimes joins Mary and the three Banks children on a few tangential
adventures before the family’s deadline for their home arrives and bad
news is imminent.
The movie is a bit of a mixed bag from the
get-go, with a wide-eyed Miranda singing a tune that’s not quite in his
range and with an accent that doesn’t fully stick. However, he has
enough energy to power through numbers that better suit his strengths.
Blunt riffs on Mary Poppins by giving her some extra pep, a fresher
wardrobe and an all-knowing sly smile that Michael and Jane always seem
to miss. She’s delightful to watch, and her version of Poppins seems to
take pleasure in throwing the children into magical situations.
Blunt
and Miranda share the highlight of “Mary Poppins Returns,” a set of
animated musical numbers with talking animals reminiscent of the “Jolly
Holliday” sequence in the original, “The Royal Doulton Music Hall” and
“A Cover is Not a Book.” Along with the three Banks children, the group
travels into an animated world set on the side of a ceramic vase the
kids accidentally chipped. Everyone’s costumes look more like drawings,
and the movie takes on bright, bold colors missing from live-action
London. The sequence feels at once singular yet clearly an homage to the
original, and it’s enchanting to see it work—until it doesn’t.
Sticking
too close to the footsteps of the original has its own pitfalls, as
evidenced by the “Trip a Little Light Fantastic” number. On their way
home from a disappointing trip to the bank, Mary and the three children
find themselves lost and in need of help from Jack and his
streetlighting friends. They assemble for what’s supposed to be a
rousing number in the spirit of “Step in Time” but ultimately falls
flat. Marshall, who also co-choreographed routines with Joey Pizzi, John DeLuca,
Tara Nicole Hughes and Marlon Pelayo, layers in too much for spectacle
and ends up with a Baz Luhrmann-size hodgepodge of contemporary dance,
parkour and BMX bike tricks that feels like it was choreographed in the
last decade. The scene's steps reference everything from “An American in Paris” to “Silk Stockings” to the “Step Up” movies, but it is so messily shot that our characters get lost in the shuffle.
For someone who learned every word to
"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" thanks to old Disney sing-a-long
tapes, perhaps any return of Mary Poppins would never measure up to the
original. If anything, watching “Mary Poppins Returns” works best if the
1964 movie is a distant memory or something you just never got around
to. There’s almost a parallel equivalent in the new movie for everything
in the original, which makes me wonder, why not just stick with the
original? For instance, the original had a character called Uncle Albert
(Ed Wynn) for a one-off number, “I Love to Laugh.” The new movie
features a character named Cousin Topsy (Meryl Streep)
for a lukewarm number among many props called “Turning Turtle.” Not
quite the catchiest title, but then again, none of the songs take off on
their own. Although “Mary Poppins Returns” plays with a fan’s nostalgia
with a few Easter eggs and cameos from Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury,
there’s a feeling that something is missing beyond an appearance from
Andrews. “Returns” is neither really new or familiar, but an odd
knockoff that will work for some audiences and leave others craving a
rewatch of an old favorite.
