Mary Poppins Returns Review Roundup

Mary Poppins is back! But does she win over the critics?

Emily Blunt takes on the role of the magical nanny in Mary Poppins Returns, Disney's new sequel to its hit 1964 musical film—and is even nominated for a 2019 SAG Award for her performance. The new movie, also a musical, also stars Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer, Meryl Streep and Colin Firth and also features none other than original actor Dick Van Dyke.

Mary Poppins Returns is now in theaters. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics.

1. CNN's Brian Lowry writes that Mary Poppins Returns "could just as easily be titled "Mary Poppins Remade. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, but a movie that descends from the clouds with a huge gust of nostalgia behind it only sporadically conjures magic between the title character's arrival and departure. The result is thus perfectly passable, but well short of practically perfect."

"Mary Poppins Returns is well worth seeing," he adds.
"But the live-action movies pose a somewhat more complicated challenge, one that even the title character—with all the tricks up her sleeve—can't entirely pull off."

2. Collider's Matt Goldberg gives the movie a score of C+.

"Probably the worst thing you can do before watching Mary Poppins Returns is to see the 1964's Mary Poppins not just because it's hard to compare to a film that has such a beloved reputation, but because you can see all the ways [director Rob] Marshall comes up short. His movie just doesn't have the same level of imagination, and it certainly doesn't have the songwriting chops (there's not a song in Mary Poppins Returns that has the staying power of "A Spoonful of Sugar" or "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious")."

"That's not to say that the original Mary Poppins is some untouchable gem, but rather that it appears Mary Poppins Returns didn't even try to outdo the original in any respect," he writes. "It's content to stay in the shadow of its predecessor, and while it's awfully cheery in that shadow, it feels destined to fade from memory almost as soon as the closing credits roll."





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