Mary Poppins Returns Review

The Disney monster is at it again, capping off what has been an absolutely incredible year for them at the box office. In the United States alone, Disney made a whopping $3 billion at the box office, which was 26 percent of the total market share. Both of those numbers are what Disney was able to accomplish in 2016 as well, while in 2017 they *only* got $2.4 billion and 21 percent of the total market share. So yeah, that's three straight years where Disney has reigned supreme. And we all know that's only going to continue in 2019 with the likes of "Captain Marvel," "Dumbo," "Avengers: Endgame," "Aladdin," "Toy Story 4," "The Lion King," "Frozen 2" and "Star Wars: Episode IX" all on the schedule. Yes, it's true that a lot of people might complain at Disney's dominance as it looks like they are searching for a monopoly of the movie industry. But as long as they are making movies that have a great appeal to general audiences, Disney is going to listen to the dollar bills rather than all the commentary from the peanut gallery because the silent majority often speaks quite loud when it comes to what they want at the cinema. In this case, it's really hard to not be super excited about "Mary Poppins Returns," especially when it looked like such a magical experience. 

In regards to the original "Mary Poppins," the story behind it's development is a fascinating one that may or may not be told accurately in "Saving Mr. Banks." Long story short, Walt Disney promised his two daughters that he would make a film version of "Mary Poppins," which was their favorite book. But it took 20 years to get it made because author P.L. Travers was not a fan of the idea. She finally agreed mainly because she was running out of money, but the agreement included her getting the final script approval. In a bit of a devious move, though, Disney essentially tricked her into getting his version of the movie made despite her disapproval because she wasn't given any say during the editing process, which she thought she was going to get when she officially approved of the script. This resulted in her hating the movie. In fact, she hated the movie so much that she cried during the film's premier, an event that she wasn't even invited to initially. After the premier, she approached Disney and told him that the animated sequences were the first thing that needed to go, to which Disney replied, "Pamela, the ship has sailed." In other words, after 20 years of frustration, he finally got his version of the movie made and he didn't care what she thought of it.

That's kind of brutal if you think about it. But is this a case where the end justifies the means? Should Disney have given in to her demands since she is the original creator? Does an artist deserve more creative control when their property is being adapted? Should Disney have shown her more respect rather than tricking her into letting him do what he wanted? These are all interesting questions to ask, but I find myself not feeling too bad for Travers that she thinks her original property was ruined by Disney because the movie made her a multi-millionaire since she was given a certain percentage of the royalties. Also, I tend to love Disney's final product. Travers may have been a Grinch when it came to animation, but I think the combination of live action and animation was used brilliantly to help teach the positive use of creativity and imagination for kids. Travers also may have not liked exactly how the character of Mary Poppins was portrayed, but I think Julie Andrews gave an absolutely iconic performance. Not only is the character a lot of fun, but she does a perfect job of helping teach the young Banks kids a lot of important life lessons while also helping out their parents. And of course the music and dance numbers are some of the best that musicals have seen.

However, the consequences of Disney not treating Travers well was that it took forever to get this sequel made. Walt Disney wanted to get a sequel made shortly after the original, but Travers refused. Long after Walt himself passed away, Disney kept trying to get Travers to let them do another movie, but she never let them, so they gave up and had to wait until she passed away, which wasn't until 1996. By that time, the ship seemed to have sailed on a Mary Poppins sequel. That is until this modern age of revisting all of their old franchises left the door wide open to finally fulfill Disney's wishes of getting a sequel made, which was finally approved by Travers' estate. It also helped that musicals are very much in right now thanks to the likes of "Les Mis," "Into the Woods," "La La Land," "The Greatest Showman" and "Mama Mia! Here We Go Again" all finding great success at the box office. So "Mary Poppins Returns" felt like it fit perfectly into 2018. Initially I was slightly skeptic, but mostly cautiously optimistic. I thought it was a fine idea, but I knew the movie would live or die based on the musical numbers in the movie. They didn't need to be as good as the original, but if the music wasn't acceptable, the movie wasn't going to work. 

For those reasons, I wasn't necessarily beaming with excitement. Not initially, anyways. That all changed, though, when they started showing footage. The initial teaser didn't show much, but it set a tone for the movie that was visually impressive while Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins looked and sounded brilliant. So it had my attention. But then that full trailer arrived. Just... wow! This seemed like Disney had something special on their hands. I didn't realize how much I needed a Mary Poppins sequel in my life until I saw how magical that trailer looked. And, yeah, I'm happy to report that the movie is just as magical as the trailer. In regards to plot, the movie takes place in 1935, 25 years after the events in the original movie. Michael and Jane are now grown adults. Jane is still single, but Michael is now a widower after his wife has passed away a year ago, leaving him to raise their kids on his own. He's also ran into a lot of financial difficulties as his wife was the one who was good with the finances. So it's safe to say that he's in a bit of a dark place that gets even worse when two lawyers show up to the door and tell him that he has only a few days to pay off a huge loan he took or else his house is going to be repossessed, which is the same house they grew up in as kids.

Enter Mary Poppins who is here to save the day. And she does so in a very Mary Poppins way. She's there as a nanny spending most of her time with the three children, but the ultimate goal is to help Michael get back on his feet. He's lost a lot of his passion and creativity that he had as a kid that certainly wasn't helped by the passing of his wife. This is a bit reminiscent of "Christopher Robin" from earlier this year, which showed Ewan McGregor's portrayal of Christopher Robin as one who had become so obsessed with work that he had all of his priorities a bit backward. Although what makes Michael's position in "Mary Poppins Returns" feel more real and intense is that feeling of loss that has completely wrecked him. I think this aspect of the film has a good chance of hitting home for anyone who has experienced a similar loss like this and it's boosted by an excellent performance from Ben Whishaw as Michael, as well as Emily Mortimer as Jane, who is such a great sister as she's there to provide support wherever he needs it, whether it be watching the kids or helping him find a deed for the bank that could help them save the house. I mention these performances first because I don't want them to get overshadowed too much by some of the other performances.

But of course one of the said performances get most of the attention is Emily Blunt, who steps into some very large shoes as she tries to follow-up on Julie Andrews' performance. Talk about pressure there. As I stated earlier, Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins is one of cinema's most iconic and well-loved performances. What makes Emily Blunt so excellent is that she takes that pressure and makes it look so easy. I watched the original "Mary Poppins" literally right before I went to the theater for the sequel and this is one of those performances that made me convinced that someone had a time machine and was able to go back to 1964 and convince 29-year-old Julie Andrews to come to 2018 to reprise her iconic role. Not only do I have to give props to the make-up, hairstying, and costume design teams for helping Emily Blunt look like Mary Poppins, but she also had the voice, the personality and all the mannerisms down perfectly. This movie worked because Mary Poppins was back. The very Mary Poppins that I grew up adoring because of how perfect she is. The only major difference is that Emily Blunt's singing voice isn't quite on the same level as Julie Andrews, but few females on this Earth are and thus I think Emily Blunt does a great job in her own right.

Because of this performance, Emily Blunt is rightfully getting a lot of praise and I'm totally on that bandwagon. Between this and "A Quiet Place" from earlier this year, someone give that woman a trophy. She deserves. The other person who deserves of trophy is one of the world's current favorite entertainers and that is none other than Lin-Manuel Miranda. He's not stepping into the shoes of Dick Van Dyke's character of Bert because, unlike Mary Poppins, Bert is a normal human who ages and is thus not in this film. But Miranda plays a new character named Jack, who is a former apprentice of Bert and is a lamplighter who knows all about Mary Poppins. So he's essentially plays the same exact role as Bert did in the original even if he's technically a different character. Like with Bert, it's all about spectacle and performance with Jack and boy does Lin-Manuel Miranda put on quite the show. Given that the movie, much like the original, feels a bit like a stage performance, Miranda is right in his element here and takes full advantage of whenever the limelight is on him with some excellent singing and great dancing. In addition to that, he's so charming and charismatic that it's easily to immediately fall in love with him.

Speaking of singing and dancing, I said earlier that I initially thought this movie was going to live or die based on how good the music in the movie is. That turned out to not exactly be the case because I genuinely thought the story line of the movie had the right amount of emotion and depth to it, and I loved all of the characters and the arcs that they experienced. But boy is this movie a beautiful spectacle. The director here is Rob Marshall, who has a lot of experience with this genre and it's evident that him and the team around him knows how to properly craft a musical. The dance choreography is a blast to watch while the music is well written and well sung. I do think that it's a bit unfair to directly compare the music and dance to the original since those numbers have had 54 years to entertain audiences. I think we need to give this new music a bit of time before we give it a final judgment, but I honestly think this new music has the potential to be just as well-loved for this new generation of kids as the original music did for its generation and the many that have followed it. I didn't walk out of the theater with the songs stuck in my head, but I really enjoyed them as they were happened and I think I just need to give the movie a few more watches and it might stick.

So yeah, when all is said and done, this was a very well done sequel by Disney that I think Walt himself would've been very proud of. After watching both movies back to back on Christmas Eve, I walked out of this new movie feeling that they had perfectly recaptured the magic of Mary Poppins. Some might complain that this movie was too similar to the original with not enough creativity and ingenuity to it. I don't see it that way. I saw it as filmmakers and actors who loved and respected the original movie and wanted to bring it back for a new generation of families to love. And they succeeded. And not only did the movie do a good job at pleasing me personally as one who grew up with this movie, but I was a bit surprised to see how much all of my nieces and nephews loved the film as well, so this serves as the perfect family film for this holiday season and beyond. The movie has already played quite well at the box office in the last week and a half, showing some great signs that it'll have a leggy box office run and that makes me delighted. If you haven't yet jumped on the train yet, then now is the perfect time. This has the potential to develop into a new classic for Disney and if they keep making movies like this, I'm happy to give them my money. I'll give "Mary Poppins Returns" a 9/10.