Movie Review: Mary Poppins Returns

Full Disclosure: This was a paid promotion for Mary Poppins Returns on behalf of Walt Disney Studios.  I received free promotional items in exchange for a review.  I was not told what to say in this review and all opinions expressed are my own.

I didn’t get to see Mary Poppins Returns in the theaters like I wanted to. We don’t make it to the movies very often as a whole family. So I was very excited to watch this movie with my kids. I wanted to get their reactions as much as mine for this review.

“Why the bath is so big?????!!!” My preschooler wanted to know as the kids were swimming underwater with dolphins. He wanted to know the answer so urgently that we had to pause the movie to answer him.

“It’s magic. From Mary Poppins.”

“Oh,” he replied and then laughed at all the bubbles and animals.

I think my kids’ favorite part was the end with the balloons. The preschooler especially laughed at that. They also said they wanted to go to the fair now. My older kids really liked the Topsy Turvy shop.

Mary Poppins Returns felt new and original but it very much followed the spirit of the first one especially when they want to take a bath the Mary Poppins way. It reminded me of Michael asking to clean the nursery again.

The first Mary Poppins movie was about helping the kids learn a little responsibility. This time, Mary had a different lesson. She wanted the kids to learn how to be kids again instead of being responsible all the time. There were a few times when Mary Poppins looked sad when she overheard things the kids said and the weight such young kids were carrying. 

I learned from IMDB that Emily Blunt read the books and her character is closer to the one in the books. The era of 1930 was also restored from the books. After the movie was over, I read the back of book 2 from the Mary Poppins series and I was surprised how many elements from just the summary are in the movies.

The trip to the magical cartoon world on a bowl was also from the book, but the book was a little darker according to IMDB. I noticed that this movie did have a slightly darker tone. There was a villain and the kids are mourning the loss of their mother among other things.

I’m impressed how well Disney was able to balance the spirit of the first movie while trying to incorporate more of the book at the same time. I noticed lots of charming similarities between the two Mary Poppins movies:

• The lamp lighters instead of chimney sweeps
• Topsy Turvy lady (in the book Mr. Turvy and Miss Topsy are a couple) instead of tea on the ceiling
• Magical animated bowl world instead of the magic animated world of a sidewalk painting (PS. if you look closely you can see the sidewalk painting from the first movie when Lin-Manuel Miranda’s character is putting the balloon on his bike at the end)
• Taking a magical bath instead of magical tidying
• Balloons at the end instead of kites
• They both had a bad experience at the bank 

Watching the movie and learning more about the books it was based on makes me want to read the books with my kids now.  I’m glad I got the opportunity to do this post and that I got these beautiful editions of the books that we can read together as a family.

While the songs weren’t quite as catchy and easy to sing as the first movie, I did love the messages that the songs had. I hope with time and lots of rewatching, I’ll be as familiar with the new songs as I am with “Supercalafragalisticexpialidocious.” (I’m not even looking up how to spell that because there’s not a wrong way to spell it in my mind lol.) The songs are about how to deal with loss, how to find your way if you are lost, to not be fooled by how someone looks and to judge them by their actions instead.

Mary Poppins Returns is out today (March 19, 2019) on Blu-ray and digital. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should! I loved it.

Mary Poppins Returns Trailer