Checked out Disney’s sequel to Mary Poppins… Mary Poppins Returns. Now, I don’t have much nostalgia for Mary Poppins… saw it a few times as a kid and did not like it. Saw it later as an adult and appreciated it… though maybe its also because many of the songs had seeped into my brain and I started to like them. It’s a problem I have with musicals though… it takes me awhile to enjoy a song… I rarely like a song on first listen. This makes musicals hard to watch for me. And Mary Poppins Returns is no exception.

Mary Poppins Returns stars Emily Blunt as the titular magical nanny, Ben Wishaw and Emily Mortimer as the grown up banks kids, Lin-Manual Miranda as a lamplighter (not a chimney sweep, guv’nor) and a few other recognizable talent in small rolls and cameos. The Banks family now has three new children and they are all played by surprisingly good young actors… I wasn’t annoyed by any of them and they didn’t blow any lines that made it to screen.

But the real star is, of course, Emily Blunt. She isn’t doing a Julie Andrews impression at all. She’s made the prim, fun-endorsing, slightly egotistical magical nanny her own character. And she’s wonderful in the part. I’ve always liked her and between this, her action performance in Edge of Tomorrow, her mean girl comedy chops in Devil Wears Prada, and her fightin’ mom from A Quiet Place, she’s turned into one of our best leading ladies.

Mostly this is a charming and lovely movie that doesn’t have a mean bone in its body. It tries hard to re-grab that original film’s magic and it does an admirable job. I was bopping my toes to the tunes, admiring the hand-drawn 2D animation sequences, and enjoying the dance routines well enough. Like many musicals, as noted above, its hard for me to get into the music on first go and I’m not sure any of these tunes will be remembered ten years from now. But more discerning ears than mine might disagree.

The biggest flaw of this film though is that it’s kind of dumb in its plot and has a messy, kind of stupid action climax involving Big Ben. It just feels silly and out of place given we have a magical being who could probably handle this stuff without all the effort from the mere mortals. It also, I think, teaches kids that cheating is just OK! It kind of drags down the film as a narrative story. But, to be fair, we aren’t at this film for the drama… and, to be fair to me as a viewer, they should have known that and just kept it bubbly and light.

So, yeah, I think this is an admirable attempt at a sequel to a classic film. I don’t think it’ll itself be a classic but I think it’s good enough as a companion piece. This is a fine attempt that’ll bring a small to your face and bop to your toes.