Mary Poppins Returns (2018) directed by Rob Marshall
About thirty years after the original Mary Poppins movie, grown-up Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) is a recent widower with three children. He struggles to make ends meet, since he's had a hard time adjusting and his wife was the one to do the books. One day, some lawyers from the bank come knocking on the door, threatening to repossess the house. He's an employee of the bank as was his father. Little clemency is offered by bank head Wilkins (Colin Firth). The family owns shares in the bank but can't produce the certificate to prove it. If they could find it, they'd keep the house. In this time of crisis, who should show up but Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt). Can she restore the joy of youth to the kids (who have had to take on too many adult responsibilities) as well as to Michael and his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer), who fights for workers' rights much as her mother did for women's suffrage?
The movie starts off a little slow and dark but soon hits its stride. Lin-Manuel Miranda plays Jack, who basically serves the narrative purpose that Burt (Dick van Dyke) did in the original film. He's an everyman who knows Mary Poppins and spends most of his time joining her and the kids on adventures. The Burt/Mary romantic undertones are completely gone because Jack is interested in Jane Banks. Jack is a fine dance and duet partner for Mary Poppins. The low energy of the first few songs gets washed away by much stronger material in the middle and the end. Blunt does a great job as the title character. The fantasy sequences are amazing to look at and fun. Naturally, the movie has an upbeat finale that really shows the joy Mary reinjects into the Banks family's lives.
While it's not great like the original (which is an almost impossibly high bar to reach), this film is a lot of fun and worth watching. The songs are enjoyable but not particularly memorable and the plot is very familiar but still enjoyable.
Recommended.
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