After a half a century
stuck in development, this finally got made with musical-friendly
producer/director Rob Marshall in charge, and Emily Blunt filling in for Julie
Andrews as the ageless Mary Poppins.
No need to worry: Emily
Blunt is great as Mary Poppins who can sing, dance, act and surprisingly make a
dirty joke or two.
During
“The Great Slump” we see the Banks children have grown into worried and depressed
adults. Michael (Ben Whishaw) is mourning over the passing of his wife a year
prior (a sad way to start an about to be uplifting story) and worried about his
sad young children John (Nathanael Saleh), Anabel (Pixie Davies) and little
Georgie (Joel Dawson). Adult Jane Banks (Emily Mortimer) is also around to struggle
a little, and she’s around when lawyers from the bank (Jeremy Swift and Kobna
Holdbrook-Smith) arrive to give a notice that the family will lose their home
on Cherry Tree Lane if they do not pay back their loan.
As
it turns out, Michael is actually working for evil banker manager William
Weatherall Wilkins, played by Colin Firth, and has shattered his childhood
dreams to make this happen, but he’s not earning enough money. What will happen
to the family, and even their loyal elder housekeeper Ellen, played by Julie
Walters? Friendly neighborhood lamplighter Jack, played by Lin-Manuel Miranda,
looks on feeling very worried, sings a few song numbers, and is very much a stand-in
for Dick Van Dyke’s chimney sweep Bert from the first movie, however Miranda’s
Cockney accent is not nearly as horrible.
Thankfully
Mary Poppins returns through a kite and that famous umbrella to make everything
right, and the new songs appear really fast once she arrives. There’s Can You Imagine That?, where she takes
the kids on a journey to an underwater adventure by entering through their
bathtub, a long scene copying the hand-drawn animation style of the first film
with Chris O’Dowd and Mark Addy voicing a Dog and his Horse that finishes with
Blunt and Miranda’s vaudeville number A
Cover Is Not The Book, and a long scene with Miranda and his fellow
lamplighters singing Trip A Little Light
Fantastic, which is very much trying to make you think of the beloved
memories of the catchy Chim Chim Cher-ee
from the first movie.
Dm Bradley asked in his review, “These tunes are all pleasant but are they quite
as fabulous as A Spoonful Of Sugar and (deep breath)
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Will kids 50+ years from now be humming
them? Well, probably not, but they’re suitably sweet nevertheless.”
Bradley
noted, “With a silly bit for Meryl Streep (the third Mamma Mia! alumnus) as
Mary’s gravity-challenged cousin Topsy, a fair whack of icky sentiment and a
certain forced niceness, this indubitably has its problems, but Blunt more than
compensates for them.” She actually admitted in an interview not that long ago,
“No one can out-Julie Andrews Julie Andrews,” but she almost does apparently.
David Warner plays Admiral Boom and Jim Norton plays his first mate, Mr.
Binnacle. Expect a cameo appearance from Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury as
well.
This
is an absolute must for those who are fans of the first one, like me. I really
felt the drama and emotions in this film, I loved the songs and I left the
theater feeling happy, which is what I was feeling the whole way through. Do
not miss your chance to see this in the theaters, if you haven’t seen it already.
Go to the theater and see it because it was great for it to be released around
the holiday time.
Well
everyone, now I can thank everyone for joining in on “Disney Live-Action Month.”
I hope everyone enjoyed my reviews of the films, as it was a lot to cover. But
now that I have reviewed all the ones I have seen, hopefully everyone has been
watching the ones I gave a recommendation to.
Look
out for this Friday when I continue “Madagascar Month.”
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