Valeria Truitt

This film is uniquely organized, which kept me interested throughout. The characters so deftly channel the real-life people they portray that a few portrayals are instantly recognizable (is that Condoleeza Rice on screen? Barack Obama? Only the makeup artist knows for sure.)

I fell in love with the Disneyfied Mary Poppins played marvelously and optimistically by Julie Andrews half a century ago, not the P.L. Travers one played pessimistically and coldly by Emily Blunt. The entire movie was dark--until Dick Van Dyke showed up and brought life and light with him! After that, the gloom dissipated and the last few minutes of the film were much more enjoyable. The balloon sequences were the best of the lot. Otherwise, the music is forgettable, the dance sequences are forgettable--except for Mary Poppins as a vaudeville performer, which is simply embarrassing. P.L. Travers might have approved of this film much more so than the original, but I do not. Bring back music that children will find so captivating that they learn all the words and sing for weeks--months--afterward! My son and the neighborhood kids sang "Let's Go Fly a Kite," "Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag," "Chim Chim Chirree," "Jolly Holiday," "Step in Time," and others interminably while the moms were singing "A Spoonful of Sugar" and "Sister Suffragette"--and everyone was warbling "Super-calli-fragil-istic-expe-alli-docious!" We could sing most of them straight through now, half a century later, with only a glimpse of the lyrics. I saw "Returns" with my pre-teen grandson, who liked the movie and can't remember one single song.