Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Jack and I really liked this fun musical, continuing the story of the magical English nanny, though decidedly too long at 2:10, especially for the youngest part of its target audience. Everyone's singing voices are good and the orchestrations worthy of a Disney extravaganza. This was one of my choices for our Christmas day movie, but Amy wanted something a bit less fluffy (we saw Vice), so Jack and I saw it a few days ago.

Emily Blunt (last blogged for A Quiet Place) aptly fills the title role, a more prickly version than Julie Andrews' in 1964. As depicted in Saving Mr. Banks, the book author P.L. Travers was a bit prickly herself, and was unhappy with Walt Disney for making the nanny so nice. The book's story took place in the depression of the 1930s, as this sequel does, but the older movie was set in the teens. Lin-Manuel Miranda (before Hamilton, he wrote and starred in In the Heights for which he was nominated for a Pulitzer, won one Tony, and was nominated for another; he's had a few TV roles, including a Sopranos, a Modern Family, two Houses, and two Curb Your Enthusiasms; as an Emmy and Grammy winner, he just needs one Oscar to complete the EGOT--he has one nomination, for How Far I'll Go from Moana) steps in (one of the best numbers in the old movie was Step in Time) as Jack the lamplighter, an updated substitute for Dick van Dyke's Bert the chimney sweep.

Ben Whishaw (most recently in these pages for The Lobster) plays the grown-up Michael as a sad widower with three cute kids, played by Pixie Davies and Nathanael Saleh (each with some experience) and Joel Dawson in his film debut as little Georgie. Emily Mortimer (last blogged for The Bookshop) is a more optimistic and practical grown-up sister Jane, now a labor organizer, as her mother was a suffragette in the 1964 version. Supporting strength comes from Julie Walters (most recently in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool; fun trivia: not only was she considered for the 1964 role of Poppins, she used to get mistaken for Andrews out in public) as the cheerful cook, Colin Firth (last in Kingsman: The Secret Service) as the crooked banker, and Meryl Streep (most recently in these pages for The Post) as the crazy cousin Topsy, using the Polish accent she developed for Sophie's Choice (1982). Then we have fun cameos by Dick Van Dyke (covered in If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast) as a nice uncle and Angela Lansbury (three Oscar nominations, including her debut in Gaslight (1944) which I didn't see; she has 113 credits on imdb with 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote counting as one; and we mustn't forget her Mrs. Potts in Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991)) as the balloon lady. She is a few months older than Van Dyke and they're both 93. She stays seated for her scene but Van Dyke, apparently at his own request, climbs onto a desk and dances.

Director/choreographer Rob Marshall (last blogged for Into the Woods) works from a screenplay by David Magee (most recently in these pages for Life of Pi). The screen story is credited to Marshall, Magee, and John DeLuca (worked as a choreographer on Marshall's Chicago (2002), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), Nine, and this one, and gets his first writing credit here). The choreography is entertaining, with Trip a Little Light Fantastic taking the place of Step in Time.

The costumes by Sandy Powell (just mentioned in The Favourite) are great, too.

Other than short instrumental references to the Sherman brothers' melodies from the 1964 version, all the music is composed by Marc Shaiman (he has five Oscar nominations: for two songs and three scores, including The American President (1995) and The First Wives Club (1996); he also scored City Slickers (1991), The Addams Family (1991), Sister Act (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Forget Paris (1995), Mother (1996), In & Out (1997), Simon Birch (1998), The Out-of-Towners (1999), Down with Love (2003), Hairspray (2007), The Bucket List (2007), six episodes of Smash (2012), Parental Guidance, among the ones I have seen) and he is Golden Globe nominated for this score.

Miranda gets to sing two slightly rap numbers, and I also particularly liked the bike race in the fog as well as the many production numbers. If you saw Marshall's Chicago (2002), you will surely notice that Blunt's hairstyle in The Cover Is Not the Book is the same bob that Catherine Zeta-Jones wore in that musical. I've been streaming the soundtrack on Apple Music (also available on YouTube and Spotify)

Recently we saw the touring company of Aladdin on stage and stayed for a visit with some cast members. One person asked my question: how did the carpet fly? The actors answered, in unison, "Disney magic!" There's plenty of flying in this movie, and some swimming, in this magical production. Also, during the opening credits, while the overture is playing, there are lovely pictures. The movie is full of Easter eggs, or hidden gags, some of which are revealed in this spoiler-filled article.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are averaging a respectable 78% and its audiences 70. It was nice to see it on the big screen, but it should be available for home viewing on disk and streaming in March 2019.