Mary Poppins Returns
I don't post much about movies these days, but I figured after having fun with Princess Leia's bit as Mary Poppins in the most recent Star Wars flick, I'd take a bit of a closer look at the "real" Mary Poppins.
First, I'll note that I never read the PL Travers books. But I've seen the first Mary Poppins movie many times, on laser disc (I date myself!). The first movie was a silly, elitist celebration and gentle lampooning of lily white Northern European aristocracy -- a popular Disney theme of the time. But that movie had Julie Andrews at the top of her craft, and Dick Van Dyke at his charismatic best, no matter his atrocious Cockney accent. It also had an overload of some of the Sherman Brothers' best songs -- the sound track included instantly memorable classics such as "Sister Suffragette," "A Spoonful of Sugar," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "Chim Chim Cheree," "Step in Time," "Let's Go Fly a Kite," and Walt Disney's favorite song, "Feed the Birds (Tuppence a Bag)."
While the opening credits disclosed the Richard Sherman consulted on the music for the new film, it would hardly be realistic to expect so many instant classics this time around. Not that they didn't give it a go: Lin-Manuel Miranda was wonderful, and his opening song "Underneath the Lovely London Sky" was at least in the spirit of the original. The rap bit in "The Cover is Not the Book" was fine, and I liked "The Place Where Lost Things Go," and the exuberant dance number "Trip a Little Light Fantastic." A few more songs like that from Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and I'd easily have forgiven much of the rest of the film, or at least enjoyed it as much as Lori did.
But this movie seemed empty of the charm that buoyed the original. Colin Firth was "evil" as Wilkins, but his character revealed way too many Deus ex machina elements: Not that I expect a Mary Poppins plot to make sense, but I'd have hoped at least to be interested in it. Here, I found it hard to stay awake. Emily Blunt is properly spit spot in the title role, and she sings and dances fine, but to me that's the extent of it; other than her penchant for talking to her umbrella it's hard to fathom what's so practically perfect about the character this time around. Worse, the characters of Jane and especially Michael are utterly spineless follow-ups to the originals. OK, I get it, Michael has a bit of his father in him. But David Tomlinson's George Banks at least was funny in his perpetual state of detached harried bemused exhaustion. Ben Whishaw, as Michael, is just a wimp.
The original movie is a fantasy, with perhaps a bit of a lesson for children. A small bit, since the rooms ended up cleaning themselves and the children were never really forced to take responsibility for anything at all beyond, perhaps, not being a codfish. Perhaps it was a slightly bigger lesson for adults: Pay attention to your children! Don't neglect them! Take them out to the movies! Movies like "Mary Poppins"!!
But "Mary Poppins Returns" never gets that far. Its scenes seem nearly literally copied from the original, in pretty much the same order, albeit with a few actors of color in the mix. Just substitute, as needed: Instead of going to the races in the animated scene, we take a journey in to a porcelain bowl. Instead of the chimney sweeps dancing, here it's the leeries. And instead of flying a kite in the closing scene, we instead float away on balloons -- with the help of Angela Lansbury, who starred with Tomlinson in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, way back when. Why bother seeing these new bits, when the original scenes with the original music are still out there?
But there is Navckid Keyd (Dick Van Dyke), now as then. Van Dyke plays Mr. Dawes junior this time; he was Dawes senior in the first film, in addition to his leading role as Burt. But he has the same basic costume -- or at least the hair -- as in the first film. Van Dyke is every bit as funny now, even in brief, at age 93. The tuppence are even back in one last contrivance (without the song): I even found myself wishing he'd finish the wooden leg joke. He served as that spoonful of sugar. Too bad his charm in that one scene didn't get the rest of the movie to go down.
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