‘Mary Poppins’ was the greatest of all time, so who needs her ‘Return’?

ARNOLD WAYNE JONES|  Executive Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com

Mary Poppins Returns is a sequel more than half a century in the making. The original live-action Disney fantasy, released in 1964, starred Julie Andrews (she won an Oscar) as a magical nanny who suddenly appears on the doorstep of the Banks family — a buttoned-down Mr. Banks, an activist Mrs. Banks and their two children, Jane and Michael — and, through her unconventional (and supernatural) child-rearing techniques awakens a sense of wonder and unity in the fractured home, circa 1910.

Mary Poppins is a delight, to be sure, but it’s also something of a one-off: A series of loosely (if at all) connected adventures with Mary, a chimney sweep named Bert (Dick Van Dyke) and the tykes. It works, against all better judgment. But hey! It’s a family film, warm as cocoa and woolen socks.

And the sequel, which had 54 years to percolate…? It hits the exact. Same. Beats. Note for note.

This is not, critically speaking, a good thing.

Remember when Mary, Bert and the kids rode a carousel, and entered a world of animation? Yeah, that happens here, too — again with horses, a musical number and the same (lovely) style of hand-drawn Disney animation from before. How about Uncle Albert, who took afternoon tea on the ceiling? We now have Topsy (Meryl Streep, hamming it up deliciously), whose atelier turns upside down every first Wednesday. Flying kites becomes magical balloon rides; chimney sweeps dancing become lamplighters… dancing. Curmudgeonly banker Mr. Dawes Jr. becomes his slicker (but equally curmudgeonly) bank-running nephew (Colin Firth).

The plot and style is, simply put, a complete rehash, from the now-grown Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw, even sporting David Tomlinson’s push-broom moustache) and Jane (Emily Mortimer, bearing a striking resemblance to Glynis Johns and now a labor crusader rather than a suffragette… but fully a decade too old for the part) having forgotten all the lessons Mary taught them 25 years earlier. It a remakequel, like Superman Returns, that cleaves dangerously close to its predecessor while nevertheless continually acknowledging the events of the original. It’s a Mobius strip of storytelling, eternally looping upon itself.

I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised. Disney has been milking the brood cow of Poppinalia for more than a decade — first with the stage musical in 2006, then the fictionalized “behind the scenes” drama of Saving Mr. Banks in 2013. They aren’t about to risk doing anything that veers too far from the brand, even when turning it over to someone as capable as director-choreography-co-writer Rob Marshall. Marshall’s skillset mimics the energy and style of the original, but we are living in a post-Greatest Showman universe, one where a little edge goes a long way. Mary Poppins Returns has less edge than a tortilla.

It doesn’t help that most of the songs, by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, pale by comparison to those of the Sherman Brothers; indeed, the most emotional moments in the film are when the score samples phrases from the “Spoonful of Sugar” or “Feed the Birds.” It’s weakest when you actively think, “Oh! This is just like ‘Chim-Chim-Cher-ee!’ … ‘Chim-Chim-Cher-ee’ was better.” Which is a lot.

Some of that burden falls, unexpectedly, on the shoulder of Lin-Manuel Miranda as Jack, a leery who knew Mary 25 years before and remembers her fondly. His British accent is no better than Van Dyke’s famously off-model version, and for the most part he’s saddled with singing traditional showtunes while repeatedly looking at Mary with doe-eyed wonder (it comes off as smug). When he’s finally allowed a rap sequence — he really drops the accent there — we see Miranda for what makes him such a genius entertainer. It’s too brief.

But Emily Blunt almost saves the day. She captures Andrews’ sly humor and whimsy, with an underlying sense of menace. She looks and sounds positively … er… loverly. (Two late cameos, by Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury, also generate so much good will you just want to explode with affection.)

Mary Poppins plopped this Greatest-of-all-time governess into the likes of the Bankses, allowed us to casually accept her magicality, and plucked our heartstrings like a zither playing “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Mary Poppins Returns muddles the meaning of that magic (is it really happening? Hypnosis? Mass delusion?) and simply retreads old imagery with slightly improved visual effects. I’ll stick with the original, thank you very much.