Mikey J

Mary Poppins Returns is a fun movie to be sure. The children have the appropriate sense of wonderment that plays well off of Emily Blunt's MP. I enjoyed the lamplighters that replaced the chimney sweepers and Lin Manuel Miranda's character. However, everything else to me fell flat primarily because of the emphasis being on the three kids' story. Jane and Michael were there, but other than a tiny musical number in the beginning we get little character development. Jane is a labor activist and Michael works for the bank his father did. The maid/other nanny? felt like she didn't even need to be there if she's incapable of taking care of the kids to the point that you need Mary Poppins. Even Mary Poppins gets put in the background in places. The idea was that the family needed Mary Poppins and she appears, then it seems like at times she was a background character. I guess I didn't get the commanding, Mary Knows Best, playfully patronizing Mary from the first movie. Meryl Streep and her side role felt unneeded because of lack of payoff. I don't want to spoil the scene. As for the big focus of one of the kids, the bowl could have actually been a great narrative object for the movie like the kite sort of was. It was this movie's chalk drawings and could have made a cool change at the beginning and end to show the effects of MP. All in all it was a cute, fun little movie to watch and I do recommend seeing it a least once. I will be watching it again because it is quite enjoyable.

I absolutely enjoyed this game. Especially some of the side quests like Morlund and his hot air flying machine or Talanah's hunt for Amadis. The visuals? Stunning even on PS4! Sone instances of random pop-in and brief 3 second area loading screens. Character design looks fantastic especially with the different tribal face paints on the characters. UI could use some more work. Cycling through needed traps or items with d-pad takes too long especially in battle. Mission markers liked to disappear or force you to go a set path and freak out trying to correct you when you off route it. Waypoint markers and mission markers do not work together. Mission markers like to cause waypoint markers to disappear. I had to deactivate a current mission a couple times just to go to a waypoint that I wanted to go. Now, the main story mission was so fun and I love all of Aloy's companions that she gets through the story. The problem I had was the late main story didn't stick the landing. I'm not going to spoil it, but there should have been some multiple endings branch choice ending just for what was given to us. The ending as has been said by others is very rushed and not given the epic pacing and timing needed to flesh out the villains. Also, the Blighted land that was advertised in the trailers and title screen is treated like an afterthought almost.