• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Mary Poppins Returns Review Thread

Penguin

Penguin

The Mushroom Kingdom Knight
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,218
New York
Didn't see one, and I assume not like the movie everyone is paying attention to, but guess review embargo is up.

It's going well

Whether it's exploding into large-scale production numbers or closing in on intimate scenes of a family in crisis, the sequel captivates by adopting a time-honored Disney formula that combines the joy and imagination of childhood with an underlay of melancholy. Its old-fashioned, honest sentimentality plasters a smile across your face and plants a tear in your eye, often simultaneously. All that should make this a winning family entry for the holidays and a repeat-viewing favorite for years to come. At 130 minutes, it might be a tad too long to stop the littlest kids from fidgeting, but then Mary Poppins was even longer, and that never hurt its popularity.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mary-poppins-returns-review-1167792

P.L. Travers' practically perfect nanny is back in the perfectly fine sequel "Mary Poppins Returns" , with Emily Bluntcarrying the magic carpet bag and living up to the high bar Julie Andrews set in 1964's original "Poppins." While narratively no match for the classic Disney musical, the new "Mary" adds new songs and multitalented charisma machine Lin-Manuel Miranda to the mix for one undoubtedly comforting nostalgia-fest.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life...t-endlessly-charming-iconic-nanny/2278478002/

It fails through no lack of effort. Magee borrows instantly recognizable elements from the earlier film, but he also draws heavily on the superb P.L. Travers books that inspired it, particularly "Mary Poppins Comes Back" (1935) and "Mary Poppins Opens the Door" (1943). Real inspiration, however, proves elusive. The laborious Depression-era plot brings together a house in disarray, a looming bank foreclosure and a few scowling cardboard villains. The score, composed by Marc Shaiman, is as hardworking as it is monotonous; the new songs crowd together inside your head, coalescing into a thick, vaguely melodic vapor that evaporates immediately after the movie has ended.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-mary-poppins-review-20181212-story.html

"Mary Poppins Returns" could just as easily be titled "Mary Poppins Remade." That's not a bad thing, necessarily, but a movie that descends from the clouds with a huge gust of nostalgia behind it only sporadically conjures magic between the title character's arrival and departure. The result is thus perfectly passable, but well short of practically perfect.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/12/entertainment/mary-poppins-returns-review/index.html

But I'll just end the suspense right here: "Mary Poppins Returns," made with palpable love for its predecessor, is glorious and gorgeous, and I adored it. (And I cried, more than once; if Mary Poppins was your magical nanny long ago, you might, too.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

https://www.seattletimes.com/entert...m_medium=social&utm_campaign=article_left_1.1

Director and cowriter Rob Marshall (Into the Woods, Chicago) clearly understands the legacy he's taken on, filling nearly every corner of the screen with song and dance and tweedy whimsy — even a featured sequence done entirely in the flat '60s-style animation of the original. But he doesn't seem to quite know how to find a storytelling spine to match Mary's famous rigor; the narrative feels spindly and slightly adrift, a parasol in the wind. And an easy solution for its central stakes — the family must find a misplaced deed by the midnight deadline, or lose their beloved home — is never in doubt.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

https://ew.com/movie-reviews/2018/12/12/mary-poppins-returns-ew-review/

After that, I stayed with the movie a long time — longer than it deserved, really — but its spell had begun to dissipate the instant Mary's feet touched terra firma. Mary Poppins Returns is a work of painstaking re-creation, and it's full of nice touches. But it's a bit of a dud.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/mary-poppins-returns-review.html
 

Deleted member 9135

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,435
Y'all wasting time arguing about talking car movies and man fish movies when Mary Poppin's coming to steal everyone's money. God Bless.
 
tadale

tadale

Member
Oct 25, 2017
692
Atlanta
The majority of live-action Disney stuff over the past few years has been boring and forgettable, but I still have hopes for this one.
 
-shadow-

-shadow-

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,110
I really hope it'll be good, but I don't have a ton of faith in Disney with these films. We'll see.
 
Timu

Timu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,572
bandicam-2018-12-12-15-15-18-380.png

bandicam-2018-12-12-15-15-43-038.png

It is very, very rare for the average rating to be around the same as the percentage, usually it's higher or lower between them(like higher percentage but lower average or lower percentage but higher average).
 
Xe4

Xe4

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,295
Sounds like a solid, if not quite amazing film. Looking forward to it
 

OtherWorldly

Banned
Dec 3, 2018
2,857
Timu said:
bandicam-2018-12-12-15-15-18-380.png

bandicam-2018-12-12-15-15-43-038.png

It is very, very rare for the average rating to be around the same as the percentage, usually it's higher or lower between them(like higher percentage but lower average or lower percentage but higher average).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This happens when the people who like it give it a very high score and the people who dislike it give it a 6/10
 
jett

jett

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,658
Sounds like something that can be easily skipped and forgotten about.
 
Timu

Timu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,572
OtherWorldly said:
This happens when the people who like it give it a very high score and the people who dislike it give it a 6/10
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
While true, this doesn't happen too often. 95% of the time the percentage is much higher than the average rating.
FantasticMrFoxdie said:
Was expecting a much higher score considering all the nominations it got. lol
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's average rating is great though, even closer to the original Mary Poppins.
 
Ridley327

Ridley327

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,490
Georgia (the state, not the country)
Reviews seem to match my impressions of the trailer: neat that someone pumped so much money into a jaunty musical set in a fantasy world in this day and age, but it does little to convince you that you wouldn't be better off watching the original instead, even if for the umpteenth time. I feel like Rob Marshall is the kind of director that did one thing one time and somehow became the go-to guy for that particular thing, and no one seems to want to admit that he's just not that great at it.
 
NealMcCauley

NealMcCauley

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,502
I was browsing reviews earlier and both Variety & AV Club used the word "calculated" in a not exactly flattering way.
 
SirMossyBloke

SirMossyBloke

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,855
I still think Emily Blunt was the wrong choice for this, but i'll watch it regardless. It will still never top the first one for me.
 

Deleted member 5596

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,747
Emily Blunt trying to fit the shoes of Julie Andrews has to be the hardest thing any actress could face, because Julie Andrews was literally perfect as Marie Poppins
 
Ridley327

Ridley327

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,490
Georgia (the state, not the country)
NealMcCauley said:
I was browsing reviews earlier and both Variety & AV Club used the word "calculated" in a not exactly flattering way.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm actually surprised that AV Club gave it a C+. That review read way, way lower than that with passages like this:

Moments of potential transcendence, such as an afternoon constitutional through an expressionistic wonderland recalling the Fuji Velvia vividness of What Dreams May Come, ring false in light of this project's mercenary origins. Director Rob Marshall and writer David Magee repeatedly wink toward a presumed awareness of the 1964 original, all the while doing everything in their power to convince us that this film comes from a place of sincerity and not a tall stack of intellectual property contracts. It's the Poppins we know and love, back to restore our dimming sense of childlike amazement—on behalf of a gargantuan, sinister corporation currently waging a campaign to mechanically extract every available dollar from our earliest memories. This paradox plagues all of Disney's output, but Mary Poppins Returns' vocal emphasis on the beauty of nostalgia foregrounds that tension. It's less heartwarming than heart-microwaving.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The rest is here, but goddamn, they chucked it into the sun.
 
carlsojo

carlsojo

Member
Oct 28, 2017
33,835
San Francisco
I grew up watching Mary Poppins, watched it when my little brother grew up watching Mary Poppins, and watching it again now with my daughter.

And I'm just... not really interested in this? Maybe my daughter has burned me out on Poppins.
 
Ridley327

Ridley327

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,490
Georgia (the state, not the country)
Penguin said:
A few of the reviews quoted in the op read like a more negative review than the scoring suggests

It's weird
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's a bit baffling, but like I said, I think the fact that this is really the only film of its kind in some time helps give it a lot of brownie points. Something like La La Land or Sing Street won't scratch the same itch due to their major influences being decidedly non-Disney, so you don't have anywhere else to go if this kind of live-action musical is what you're looking for.
 
Certinfy

Certinfy

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
3,476
Same RT as Aquaman (75%) but a MC score 17 points higher (70 to 53). I know how both work but I wouldn't have expected a 75% RT film having such a high MC score.
 

Deleted member 48897

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 22, 2018
13,623
Wait, LMM's on the cast but he wasn't involved in the actual songwriting? Feels like a hugely missed opportunity. I don't think anyone else is better suited to capture the Brothers Sherman's legacy
 
Meows

Meows

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,399
Strong reviews for Blunt. Kudos to her - being the successor to Julie Andrews' Oscar winning role is no easy feat.
 
VinylCassette64

VinylCassette64

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
2,426
FantasticMrFoxdie said:
Was expecting a much higher score considering all the nominations it got. lol
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Agreed with this. Even the impressions that commented on it's heavy leaning on nostalgia still sounded broadly positive.

It's actually really funny (and surprising) to see critics responding more favorably to Bumblebee when you compare both films' Tomatometers (Bee's 96% to Poppins' 76%); even though both films currently have the same average score (7.4/10) and share a common complaint in the more critical reviews (narrative/story beats feeling too familiar to other recognizable films).

I presume Bumblebee coming off the mostly terrible Bayformers movies and serving a soft reboot gave it a leg up in regards to reviewers' expectations going in; whereas Disney was making a very belated direct sequel to a cinematic classic.
 
shaneo632

shaneo632

Weekend Planner
Member
Oct 29, 2017
29,008
Wrexham, Wales
I saw Bumblebee and I think the average score is about 0.5 too high. It's good but 7.4 seems a bit much for such a simple, unambitious movie.
 
mreddie

mreddie

Member
Oct 26, 2017
44,116
I just want to see DVD dancing like he never aged. Blunt finally getting that Disney check.
 
Waffle

Waffle

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,823
Saw the movie tonight and I really enjoyed it. I think the songs are very good as a whole, but just missing the 2-3 songs that'll be in your head for decades. Trip A Little Fantastic is fun though. The movie had plenty of references to the original which was great and I really loved Blunt as Mary Poppins. I feel she shows more emotions with the character, which might be good or bad depending on who you ask, but I enjoyed her performance a lot. Also the second song in the movie got me pretty emotional and I wasn't expecting that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.