Mary Poppins Returns Movie Anybody Out

But otherwise this is a crisply executed and refreshingly old-fashioned musical, drawn again from P.L.

Travers Poppins books.

Her former sibling charges, Michael and Jane, are now grown-ups (played by Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer), and widower Michael needs help with his own children (Joel Dawson, Pixie Davies and Nathaniel Saleh).

This is an unenviable task, but Blunt is a big reason Mary Poppins Returns sparks to life; straight-backed and sly-eyed, the actress has complete authority in the role, and she gets laughs by maintaining Marys no-nonsense attitude.

The only problem is shes not onscreen long enough; the camera frequently seems to forget shes there.

With his bland little-kid face and showbiz pizzazz, Miranda fits neatly into the Disney vibe; hes like a Christmas pudding that also sings and dances.

The songs, by Hairspray duo Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman, are catchy and buoyant, and the production numbers stretch out into vast extravaganzas.

Mary Poppins Returns Movie Anybody Out

The films physical production is so big that at times it can feel like a Disneyland ride, and Marshall is guilty of leaning on our shared nostalgia for a 54-year-old movie anybody out there not have Mary Poppins DNA in your genes.

The film definitely trades on our nostalgia for the original film, but its stuffed with catchy songs and feels refreshingly old-fashioned.

Luckily, we have Emily Blunt, an actress who makes her own kind of magic in playing the impatient, imperious fixer once described as looking like Joan Crawford trying to be nice.

But it follows the same beats, including a new score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman that sounds like warmed-over Sherman brothers.

There are echoes everywhere of what came before including a lamplighter named Jack ( Lin-Manuel Miranda ), wholl remind of you of Dick Van Dykes chimney sweep Bert, right down to the unapologetically fake Cockney accent.

Whats the radical creator of Hamilton doing in this family-friendly escapism The answer: having a ball.

In his big-screen debut, Miranda has charm to spare and throws in a little rap during a number called A Cover Is Not the Book.

The Banks children, whom she once raised from pups, are now fully grown and in crisis.

But her widowed brother Michael (Ben Whishaw, gloom personified) is a struggling artist.

Worse, he can barely dodge foreclosure on the house on Cherry Tree Lane where he lives with his three motherless children, Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh), and little Georgie (Joel Dawson), the cutie whose kite pulls Mary from the sky.

They all dance around to Trip a Little Fantastic, a number so reminiscent of Step in Time it barely avoids charges of plagiarism.

For plot, screenwriter David Magee borrows from the 1935 sequel that author P.L.

Travers wrote to her own book (she wrote eight Poppins books in all so we may be in for a franchise).

Theres a bathtub plunge that leads to an undersea kingdom; a visit to Marys cousin Topsy (a delightfully deranged Meryl Streep) whose house turns upside down every second Wednesday of the month; and a trip inside a china bowl where animation creates a whirlwind of narrow, funny-scary escapes.

To calm her young charges, Mary sings a curious ballad called The Place Where Lost Things Go, which suggests their late mother may be found among missing dolls and umbrellas.

We know Disney dotes on dead parental figures, but what was she thinking) And why does the nanny perversely enjoy withholding her magic powers until the very last minute, making all those lamplighters risk their lives climbing Big Ben when she can simply fly up and change the clock to buy extra minutes for Michael to pay off a greedy banker ( Colin Firth ) Is she teaching self-reliance or just having a joke You may wonder.

Near the end, Van Dyke, now 91, shows up for a dance and a giggle not as Bert but as a kindly banker.

And in a cameo reportedly meant for Andrews, Angela Lansbury appears as a balloon lady to sing the movie out in a number called Nowhere To Go But Up.

It would have been a treat to see Andrews one more time in her Oscar-winning role.

But the last thing this hard-working sequel needs is another reason to cast it in the shadow of its predecessor.

Still, when Blunt and Miranda cut through the films glucose overload and take off into the wild blue of their own unique and extraordinary talents, Mary Poppins Returns shows it has the power to leave you deliriously happy.

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