Mary Poppins Returns - a review

Mary Poppins is back to help the Banks' children once more. Michael Banks -all grown up- is in a spot of trouble and it is up to Mary Poppins to guide the family once again.

Making a sequel to a masterpiece is a daunting task. The question is if you want to play it very safe, safe or be bold. It’s the scale from The Hangover: part II (the same movie yet in the different setting) ranging to The Sting II (changing a few things –for the worst- but still use the same structure) to Highlander II: The quickening (throw out everything and start again).

You’ll notice that I noted some ‘reasonably bad’ movies here. That’s because, when you are dealing with a downright classic of the calibre of Mary Poppins (1964) it is very easy for a movie to turn out a monstrosity. Luckily Mary Poppins Returns is no Highlander II. But, by playing it too safe it also doesn’t really have an own voice.

Follow the blue-print.

Mary Poppins Returns, I argue, doesn’t truly overdo itself with computereffects (at least not noticeably) and it certainly has the heart in the right place. But, at the same time it is also a rehash of what made the original movie practically perfect in every way. Basically Mary Poppins Returns feels more like showstopper song and dance numbers one after the other than the original ever was. The storyline gets muddled by this.

It like the moviemakers were in a pickle:

‘first we need to include the animation sequence, then the lamplighters dance routing, oh and don’t forget the crazy cousin on the ceiling bit’

‘and how are we going to stick all these storylines together?’

‘We’ll think of something about a missing piece of paper or something.’

Can't help but compare.
One can’t help to compare this movie to the original. In fact, the movie wilfully challenges you. But by doing so the faults of the sequel become apparent. One of the things that made the original great was that the father (and mother, certainly) was portrayed as an uncaring, unloving man in the first two acts of the movie. Only in the end, during that lonesome walk towards the bank, is this façade of the man destroyed to show the good father that was underneath all along.

In Mary Poppins Returns, however, there is no need for the father, or any character to change. So, as some sort of desperate measure the movie actually includes a villain (the original didn’t really have villains).

Also the message of Mary Poppins Returns steps a bit on the message of the original. Michael originally didn’t want to invest the money in the bank. He wanted to give it to people who needed it: the birdlady first and later -in his hour of need- his father. Now in the sequel it turns out that Michael’s father invested the money after all and that saves the day. So, the way I see it, that scary bankers song of the original is somehow suddenly proven morally right.

Time change.
Times change; that’s a given. I would argue that we’ve already gotten a great Mary Poppins sequel in both Saving Mr. Banks and the Nanny McPhee-films. Especially the latter is saved from the aforementioned blue-print of cramming ‘fan favourite’ scenes into the movie because it can tell its own tale.

Maybe I grew up (always a bad sign) but the sequel pretty much has Mary Poppins returning to help one particular family over and over again. They live in a very good-to-do part of London, they love each other very much. Why do they need Mary Poppins here? Why doesn’t float down to another family that has some real problems?

Is she in it?

The final critique is the ‘will he/she be in it ploy’. Skyfall famously had a small part reserved for Sean Connery. And Mary Poppins Returns certainly has a spot Julie Andrews. Alas the actress couldn’t take the part. So the movie opted for the indestructible Angela Lansbury. The point is, however, why write this scene without a back-up plan. No matter how much I adore Angela Lansbury (and I certainly do) her cameo still feels like a second choice. Espescially if Dick van Dyke did manage to appear.

My backup plan would’ve been to simply change the elderly lady at the end for a younger woman. Then there’s no me in the audience knowning the moviemakers couldn’t get Julie.

Still a good kids movie.

Still, in the end, kids won’t be bothered by this. Kids will probably love this movie because it is so lovingly made with bright colours to boot.

This has everything to do with the casting. The style of the movie, after all, is meticulously recreated from the original so, putting it very bluntly, all creative credit goes to the geniouses behind the original movie.

No! Casting here is key, if the actors can’t hold a candle to the original the movie plummets. Luckily that isn’t the case. Emily Blunt is wonderful as the titular character eventhough she is more often than not in the back of the scene instead of front and centre (which, in the original, again, only happened in the third act).

The real find is Lin-Manuel Miranda as Jack. Dick van Dyke has charm the over (even at 90+). Miranda is certainly competing to equal him. A bit underwritten and often used as an out the blue spark to force the story into the next song and dance routing still the actor plays the character wonderfully. He’s the believer friend the children need on their silly adventure. And he actually manages to keep the same job throughout the movie.

The children then are charming and sweet. Basically in this particular movie the kids only need to laugh and be amazed. They’re certainly up to the task.

I love that moment when the smallest child unwraps his candy in the bank

– he’s looking left at somebody off screen like: ‘is the scene over yet?’.

Finally there Ben Whishaw as Michael Banks all grown up. I’m not really certain if it is a wise choice by the movie to have his character a widower but it does allow for a series of sweet scenes for the actor to sink his teeth in.

Colin Firth was originally cast as the voice of Paddington the bear.
Now Firth gets to do some voice-acting in this movie AND he’s playing opposite his replacement.

His character is a bit unevenly written but whatever scene Whishaw is in his doggy-eyes capture the moment.

To end with the songs. Mary Poppins Returns is a musical after all. Short answer: they are all utterly forgettable. It’s the visuals you remember not the songs. So there’s a whole scene underneath the sea; I can’t remember, for the life of me, what they were singing.

I know that the songs were sweet and lovely (Whishaw’s song was lovely) and fitted the scenes, but that’s about it.

In the end Mary Poppins Returns will be remembered like other sequels to great original movies like Force ten from Navarone or 2010. All good movies, and certainly not the fate bestowed on the likes of The Sting II. But never as great as the original.