In “Mary Poppins Returns,” there’s plenty of singing and dancing and flying, but no magic. Perhaps it depends on your level of reverence for…
In “Mary Poppins Returns,” there’s plenty of singing and dancing and flying, but no magic.
Perhaps it depends on your level of reverence for the original “Mary Poppins.” The new “Poppins” is faithful to the spirit of the 1964 film and doesn’t seek to overhaul the character for modern audiences (which could have been cringe-inducing in a whole different way).
But that is also part of its problem. While handsome looking and wholesome and pure in that Disney way, “Mary Poppins Returns” is merrily out of step with today’s world, like a vaudeville act on a stand-up comedy bill. It’s for parents and grandparents who miss “the way things used to be,” and complaints that it doesn’t have enough zip will be met with arguments that everything in today’s world moves too fast anyway.
But rather than making a “Poppins” that works for today, director Rob Marshall (“Chicago”) has fashioned a film that is a throwback for throwback’s sake without evaluating how to tell the story for today. There’s a stiffness to the film, a plastic sense of whimsy, that keeps it from connecting, and a nagging feeling that all of this should be a lot more fun than it really is.
There’s plenty to admire in the production design and the costumes, and in its re-creation of 1930s London.
