Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

“This family is clearly in desperate need of a nanny."

I'm almost glad the winds and the rain were so angry and threatening today: Mrs Llamastrangler, Little Miss Llamastrangler and I don't often all watch films together but we watched this today. And it was wonderful.

The casting is spot-on, and not only the nice little cameo for nonagenarian Dick Van Dyke at the end, complete with tap dancing. Emily Blunt is absolutely superb as Mary Poppins. She approaches the part in exactly the right way- echoing Julie Andrews without being a slavish copy, giving what is very much her own performance which is nothing short of a triumph- charismatic, assured, compulsively watchable. Lin-Manuel Miranda is only passable as Bert's replacement Jack, with a mostly ok Cockney accent in flagrant disregard of tradition. And one of the children is, of course, the precociously talented Pixie Davies from Humans.

It's the '30s now, and Michael and Jane have grown up. But Michael is now widowed with three kings, which makes him tense and vulnerable as well as providing a good excuse for Jane to be living with them. But there's trouble afoot as plot necessity demands that the family home be threatened with repossession unless a miracle is to somehow happen. This plot looks awfully similar to that of Nanny McPhee but, of course, it would be the mother of all pot/kettle situations to accuse a Mary Poppins film of ripping off that particular, er, homage. It's especially amusing to see Colin Firth as the baddie here.

The film is splendidly entertaining throughout, with the fantasy sequences being splendidly child-friendly and visually exciting. The songs, if nowhere near as memorable as those of the original, are good. For such a belated sequel this is really very good indeed.