Mary Poppins Returns Review
One of 2018’s most anticipated movies has hit it big with the box office, the critics, and the audience. Nominated for four Golden Globe awards, nine Critic Choice awards, one Screen Actors guild award, and has made a total of around 289 million dollars worldwide this new Disney movie is an adorable sequel 54 years in the making.
When Disney announced they were making a sequel in September of 2015, the world was so excited to see this family classic finally get another movie. Sophomore Alyssa Kaplan said, “I remember hearing that they were going to make a sequel and I couldn’t believe it. I was so looking forward to it and it was definitely worth the wait.”
In February of 2016, they started releasing the cast for the December 2018 movie. When they released that Emily Blunt was going to play the famed nanny, Mary Poppins, her fans were ecstatic! Even though the audiences were excited that Emily Blunt was playing the most famous nanny of all, they still had their doubts on if she could live up to Julie Andrews portrayal of the nanny. Julie Andrews was approached to do a cameo in the sequel, but she turned down the offer because she wanted it to be “Emily’s show.” Most people, including myself, thought she gave a very good performance as the magical nanny. Variety.com said, “Emily Blunt is practically perfect as Mary Poppins”.
Of course a fan-favorite movie sequel has to get a fan-favorite cast. Besides Emily Blunt, the movie stars Lin-Manuel Miranda, Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Julie Walters, and Angela Lansbury. One of the best performances however was given by the incredible Dick Van Dyke. At 93 years young, he sang and danced just like he did in the first movie.
The sequel had the same charm as the original and most audiences and critics really enjoyed it. Rolling Stone said, “Mary Poppins Returns has the power to leave you deliriously happy.” With its new story line and pretty amazing cameos (Dick Van Dyke in particular) this movie did leave me deliriously happy.
One thing I didn’t like about the sequel is the missing presence of the original songs. The classic original songs were heard as an instrumental version in the background, no one sang or danced to them. I love and I’m sure pretty much everyone loves the original songs so not having them in the sequel was a big downside. The new songs do give this classic story a fresh new vibe but nothing beats the original and these new songs didn’t really come anywhere to songs like “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (yes, I just spelled that). As a matter of fact, the famous super long word that means anything you want it to mean (I’m not spelling it again) wasn’t said once during the movie. Not once.
Overall, this sequel to the 1964 movie was worth the wait, and left audiences feeling so much joy just like its predecessor. I would rate it as Fresh Tornadoes.