IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Castillo) review
AVClub (C. Bramesco) review
Mary Poppins Returns [2018] (directed by Rob Marshall, screenplay by David Magee, screen story by Rob Marshall, David Magee and John DeLuca, based on the childrens' stories [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by P.L. Travers [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) proved MUCH BETTER than I feared and my hat off to Emily Blunt for the courage to play the lead, Mary Poppins, a role that's truly indelibly SEARED into the heads of generations of us as having been played by the great Julie Andrews [wikip] [IMDb].
As with last summer's update of another children's classic (in that case of Christopher Robin / Winnie the Poo), the story here takes place after, the children of the original story Michael (played here by Ben Whishaw) and Jane (played here by Emily Mortimer) have all grown-up and Michael, a widower (hence among other things in need of a nanny...) has children of his own: Anabel, John and Georgie (played by Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh and Joel Dawson).
Set during the Great Depression, when money was tight, the family's house is threatened with foreclosure, and as the good souls but not particularly practical Michael and Jane struggle to keep the house, the uber-sensible (but also fun) Mary, not aged ONE BIT since she last flew out of the lives of the Banks family with her umbrella, "pops in" to ... well ... ;-)
Much ensues ...
I had heard from parishioners who saw the movie that I did that the current movie is "simply too much" (that it's just too fast paced). Given that this has been the legitimate criticism of the Sherlock Holmes [2009] [2011] as well as Star Trek [2009] [2013] [2016] reboots, perhaps even of the most recent The Three Musketeers [2011] adaptation (the last of which, TTM, I LIKED), I went to the current film with some, perhaps even _a lot_ of "concern." BUT all things concerned, I thought that the adaptation / updating was quite marvelous -- there's an entire sequence that plays out on the surface of a "chipped bowl" that, except for a little bit of unfortunate old-style English racism (the carriage rider, portrayed AS A DOG was voiced by someone who identified himself as "Irish" ... sigh), was remarkable!
As such, I'd compare the adaptation to The Three Musketeers [2011], The Alice in Wonderland [2010] [2016] and Winnie the Pooh / Christopher Robin [2018] updates, all of which I liked as opposed to the Sherlock Holmes / Star Trek updates that IMHO "haven't worked so well."
I didn't particularly like the unnecessary "anti-Irish" flourish mentioned above, nor the spectacularly _undeveloped_ "bad guy" banker Wilkins / Wolf (played by Colin Firth) who plays the villain in the story. Aside from being "of course" a banker, there doesn't seem to be a reason why he'd be so evil, or so spectacularly focused on destroying the peace and tranquility of Banks family.
As such, while not perfect, the effects in the film are often truly magical and EMILY BLUNT simply nails it, playing the simultaneously no-nonsense but FUN "Mary Poppins."
Sooo ... generally a pretty good and at times truly excellent job!
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