The_Cube

The one benefit of having dementia is being able to forget Jack’s songs from Mary Poppins.

Mabuse

The bad:

There were valiant attempts at imitating the Sherman Brothers style, but the songs end up unmemorable.
Every single moment has an antecedent in the original Mary Poppins. This truly is a remake.
Editorial cowardice. They wanted a long traditional opening credit sequence, and they have it, but you can tell they moved up the opening number to be a precredits sequence because they were scared they’d bore their audience. Pathetic.

Pros:
Beautiful to look at. Faithful recreations of original sets and locations. It’s imitation to the point of idolatry, but fun to look at.
Emily Blunt does an honestly excellent job in the iconic role.

...and lastly, DAVID WARNER is in this! If you’re the other person who loves David Warner (surly there can’t be more than two of us) then this is a must see. And he plays one of the most beloved characters from the old film. Fucking fantastic to see him. And he was great.

TomOpus

Warner should stick to evil roles. His imitation seemed odd and too exact.

Mabuse

He was great. While he wasn’t evil, he was a strict old military officer, so his gruff persona was perfect.

davidh777

Miranda and Blunt doing publicity with Corden--pretty funny.

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Hokeyboy

Miranda AND Corden? The Perfect Storm of Self-Absorbed Schmuckitude.

Orbi-Wan Techno

Saw this today with wife and her sister, we all remember seeing the original when it was first in theaters. Basically safe nostalgic comfort food of a movie, aimed mainly at an older audience. I personally think my six year old grandson is going to have a hard time understanding the story, and he's going to get restless during long stretches of this. Songs are all variations of the originals, movie hits pretty much the exact same beats of the first. That being said, both my wife and her sister (60) loved it, and cried when Dick Van Dyke and Angela Langsbury showed up and sang their bits.

Best song was “The Cover Is Not The Book” IMO.

joe_b

After seeing the film (and not just listening to the soundtrack), I must retract my statement. Blunt did her own thing with the character. I think critic Mark Kermode hit the nail on the head when he said her clipt way of speaking reminded him more of Tim Curry in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". She was fun to watch and it's a pleasant enough family movie, but doesn't hold a candle to the original. The driving plotline (save our home from foreclosure by greedy bank manager) felt pretty tired.

I liked that they did a sequence with hand-drawn animation (and it sucks to read that Marshall had to fight for this to be included). I wish they had done it for the under the sea number as well, since the CG in that looked a bit dodgy to me. Didn't care for Miranda or Streep here... I found both a bit grating in their musical numbers. The kid actors were okay. I'll admit I got a little misty eyed during the reprise of "The Place Where the Lost Things Go" because it reminded me of how much my grandpa is still struggling to cope after the sudden death of my grandma five months ago.

I thought I might have a pleasant matinee experience by going on a Thursday, but the theater was full of talkative older ladies and young mothers with their antsy preschoolers (and even a couple crying babies for good measure). Needless to say, I felt out of place and wish I'd just waited to watch this at home. Most of the audience seemed distracted or disinterested. The only reaction from the adults in the crowd was when Dick Van Dyke finally showed up -- though I was pretty delighted by the unexpected Karen Dotrice cameo ("Many thanks, sincerely." )

Hokeyboy

Mary Poppins: The Force Awakens indeed.

Of course I enjoyed TFA.

And I enjoyed this as well. Absolutely delightful. For a retread, anyhow. 4/5

Dan

It's funny... I like the guy. A lot actually. But i have to agree about his screen presence here. In a musical where it's okay (and expected) to be a little hokey... He dials it up so much... It's just... Ugh. And i can't speak to whether his British accent was accurate or bad, but I can say that his British accent didn't feel right for him, as an actor... At all.

That said, I did like one of his solo songs/moments a lot in this. The one where he's almost rapping... My wife called it "his rap."

Overall I enjoyed the film.
More Emily Mortimer please!

Troy Stiffler

I like Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Maybe those Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes left a bad impression on you guys?

RichC2

I know who he is but I've never seen him in anything.

dex14

Outside of Broadway, there isn’t much to have seen him in.

He’s got such a punchable face. I didn’t like him in this.

The songs were unmemorable. And that book song was terrible.

Blunt and the rest of the cast were fine. It’s nice to see Emily Mortimer in a big budget movie.

I don’t know... just didn’t really have the magic of the original, IMO.

joe_b

I thought the music was beautiful, but the lyrics tended to be a bit busy compared to the classic Sherman Brothers style they were trying to emulate. There are plenty of hummable melodies, but (unlike the orginal) none of the songs are that easy for children to memorize.

Also, the world has lived with those classic Mary Poppins tunes for 54 years. I doubt any of these new songs will seep into the modern zeitgeist the way those did. From a pop culture standpoint, the world was a lot smaller back then and entertainment has become increasingly more disposable.

JimRochester

Enjoyable couple of hours but couldn't hold a candle to "spoonful of sugar" or "let's go fly a kite".

fumanstan

Mediocre and in some cases boring for me. I was looking forward to this, but after a nice start with the bath sequence, the majority of the musical numbers are incredibly unmemorable as others have said and nothing really worthy of a hum after leaving the theater. I'm a huge fan of Lin Manuel because of Hamilton, but his accent in this felt off the entire time. Streep's sequence was also pretty bad to me.

Emily Blunt makes the movie somewhat worth it, but I wish the story was a little more interesting and had at least one good song. Very disappointing.

Daytripper

Saw this tonight and really enjoyed it. Very colorful, retro and nostalgic. But I have no need to ever see it again. The music was mostly good. Could have done with maybe one or two less songs. My favorites were that bath song and the one with the street lamp lighters. That was amazing, actually. My least favorite was Meryl Streep's scene. Stupid song and over the top performance. After all of the comments here, I expected to hate Lin-Manuel Mira but I thought he was fine. Nothing about his performance or face bugged me at all. Emily Blunt was the best thing about this film. She was terrific. I'd give this an overall 8/10 rating.

Hokeyboy

Meryl Streep's segment ("Cousin Topsy") was a direct analog to Ed Wynn's scene ("Uncle Arthur") in the original Mary Poppins.

And that sequence in the original was completely useless to the plot as well.

Daytripper

Yeah, I got that. And agree that this was "Mary Poppins: The Force Awakens". But still enjoyed it. And yes, that Ed Wynn scene was so stupid and unnecessary.

Hokeyboy

I liked the Ed Wynn sequence but it shouldn't have been in the movie. It should have been a short in front of another Disney movie

Daytripper

Agree with this. It would have been good as a stand alone or in another Disney film. Not "Mary Poppins".

mwbmis

There were moments in this movie that I really enjoyed, but it just dragged at times, and I thought it was way too long (to be honest I think the '65 film is too long as well).

I have long been a Blunt fan, and she is good in this, but the songs just aren't as memorable, and Julie Andrews is just such a high bar. The fact that she even got close is a credit to her. Miranda was more of a mixed bag.

I understand that they didn't want to repeat songs, but at some point in the movie a character needed to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It should have been Michael at the end. Not sure I liked the idea of the movie having a classic villain either.

nando820

I really enjoyed. Agree with others the songs are not as memorable as the first movie and the Meryl Streep segment is the only time i went agh

fumanstan

I was waiting/hoping for some nod to one of the classic songs, and really disappointed it didn't happen.

joe_b

Maybe not in the dialogue, but there were several instrumental callbacks to the classic songs. The end of "Nowhere to Go But Up" samples "Let's Go Fly a Kite" and "A Spoonful of Sugar".