Mary Poppins Returns Review

Mary Poppins Returns is a fun family film, but its lack of memorable music holds it back from greatness. This movie is about Mary Poppins who returns to the Banks’ household decades later to help with Michael’s kids. Emily Blunt gives a fantastic performance. You buy her as the character from the moment she comes on screen.  Lin-Manuel Miranda gives an incredible performance as Jack, now an adult, who also had Mary Poppins as a nanny. The movie just comes to life with so much energy whenever he is on screen. Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer give great performances as the Banks’ kids grown up. Whishaw in particular does fantastic work in some key emotional scenes. Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh and Joel Dawson give incredible performances as Michael’s young kids. They are never annoying and sell the emotion and childlike wonder perfectly. Colin Firth gives a good performance in a supporting role. However, the way his character is written is just one giant cliché. Meryl Streep is awful in her small supporting role. Her character serves zero purpose to the plot and is tonally inconsistent with the rest of the movie. Rob Marshal did a great job directing. The movie looks beautiful visually and the dance choreography is spectacular. The script is good, albeit, very predictable. All the main characters are likable, and you are rooting for them. As for the music, it is very underwhelming. Meryl Streep’s big musical number is just straight up awful. All the other music is perfectly fine, some of it is even pretty good, but there is not a single memorable song. My favorite part of this movie is easily the 2D animated sequences. These segments frequently left me just staring at the screen in awe. They are easily among the best scenes in any movie this year. At 130 minutes the pacing is good though does occasionally slow down a bit too much. Overall, Mary Poppins Returns is a charming family film, but due to its underwhelming music it never achieves greatness.

7/10