Featured Blu-ray and DVD Review: Mary Poppins Returns
March 17, 2019
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Mary Poppins Returns was widely expected to be the big hit of last December and it was almost assumed it would be a monster hit. Most people expected the film to cruise past $250 million domestically and many thought it would top $300 million with ease. It barely topped $300 million worldwide. Its reviews weren’t bad, but it isn’t considered a classic like the original. Is that the issue? Is it simply a matter of expectations being too high for this film, or any film, to match?
The film takes place 25 years after the events of the first film with Michael and Jane grown-up. In fact, Michael is married with three kids, or he was married until his wife passed away earlier in the year. He’s been struggling to keep it together since then, as we see in the opening scenes. The pipe has burst in the kitchen and their neighbor, Ellen isn’t much help. Fortunately, the older twins, Annabel and John, are mature enough to handle the situation, and keep the youngest, George, out of the way.
Things take a turn for the worse when two representatives of the bank show up. When Michael’s wife was sick, the bills started to build up and he took out a loan using the house as collateral. He’s behind in the payments, so much so that he has till Friday to pay the full amount, or they will repossess the house. Michael and Jane do remember that their father did have shares in the bank, so they set to work searching for that, while they send the three kids to the store to buy groceries. They don’t find the shares, but Michael does find an old kite, which he promptly throws away in an attempt to move on from the past. It immediately blows away, as if taken by some magical wind.
While walking to the store, the three children walk through the park and George spots the kite and tries to grab it, while Annabel and John chase after him. The kite catches a strong wind and nearly carries George away, but Jack, a lamplighter, manages to catch him first. It’s a struggle to keep George from flying away, but soon the Kite has a new passenger, Mary Poppins, who has come to save the Banks family again.
This brings us to the biggest issue with the movie, as well as to the end of the plot summary.
The initial setup is different, but from this point on, Mary Poppins Returns is practically a remake of the original film. It is not a bad version of the movie; in fact the execution is excellent throughout. However, the filmmakers didn’t do enough to differentiate this film with its predecessor and you come away asking why the movie needed to be made. “Unnecessary” is not a word you want associated with your movie.
That said, the film does have a certain old-fashion charm to it and if what you are looking for is a hit of nostalgia, then Mary Poppins Returns should give you that. The film was calculated to give you that. I do like most of the cast, especially Emily Blunt, who is arguably the biggest asset this movie had. Many of the other actors are also assets to the movie (including a couple of cameos I won’t spoil), but if Emily Blunt didn’t deliver as Mary Poppins, then this movie would have been unbearable. Some of the songs and dance numbers are quite charming, but again, not as good as in the original. There’s nothing here that approaches “A Spoonful of Sugar” or “Chim Chim Cher-ee”, for example.
Also, it doesn’t match Bert’s Cockney accent, which is the greatest Cockney accent in the history of Cockney. Anyone who says otherwise, including people from Cockney, are wrong.
The extras begin with Back to Cherry Tree Lane: The Return of Dick Van Dyke, a five-minute featurette about Dick Van Dyke’s appearance in the movie. There are two minutes of Practically Perfectly Bloopers. Seeing Things from a Different Point of View is a four-part, 18-minute making of / behind-the-scenes featurette that focuses on several of the musical performances. Up next is a single deleted song, which is presented as a rough recording set to storyboards. There is another making of featurette, this time with a more general focus, running 24 minutes long. Finally, there are two deleted scenes. The ordering of the extras is rather haphazard.
Mary Poppins Returns is a hard movie to review for a very simple reason. It was designed to draw as many comparisons to the original as possible to really hammer home the nostalgia. If that’s something you are looking for, then this movie delivers. However, the film is weaker than the original in practically every way, so fans of that film might end up just wanting to skip this one and stick with the original. I would say give it a rental at least. And if you saw the movie and liked it, then the DVD / Blu-ray / 4K Ultra HD is worth picking up. There’s enough extras to be worth the money.
Video on Demand (Video on Demand)
Video on Demand (With Bonuses)
The Movie
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Video Review, Emily Blunt, Emily Mortimer, Dick Van Dyke, Julie Walters, Ben Whishaw, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Jeremy Swift, Pixie Davies, Joel Dawson, Nathanael Saleh