A musical number reminiscent of Chicago absolutely seals Rob Marshall’s directorial signature on MARY POPPINS RETURNS, the sequel fifty four years in the coming.
Marshall, best known for helming the Oscar winning musical, Chicago, brings a touch of the brass to the prim, proper and preternatural Poppins, ratcheting up the raunch.
The scene I’m alluding to, is almost like an amalgamation homage to Julie Andrews, a sort of a spoonful of Poppins with a dash of Victor Victoria. It’s as if the brolly toting floating nanny has eschewed the sugar and racked up the spice and plunged into a belting burlesque.
MARY POPPINS RETURNS is Viagra for the nostalgia bone, with characters, choreography and songs redolent and reminiscent of the classic, a similarity that breeds content.
Trip A Little Light Fantastic is this films equivalent to Chim Chim Cher-eee (which won Best Song at the Oscars that year) and Royal Doultan Music Hall has more than a whiff of Supercalifragilistics.
Mary Poppins won 5 Oscars and Mary Poppins Returns will surely be nominated in Song and Score gongs. The sequel’s music is written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, whose work you’ll know from Hairspray, and the South Park movie.
Visual and sound effects are sensational, and Oscar should hopefully bestow a Best Supporting actor nomination for Lin-Manuel Miranda, here playing the Bert like role of Jack, a former chimney sweet now lamp lighter.
And speaking of Bert, the actor who breathed mock Cockney into the cheeky chimney sweep, Dick Van Dyke, pops up in a most delightful cameo.
Emily Blunt is a little more sultry as the no nonsense nanny and the costuming is a lot less staid.
There’s a terrific supporting cast comprising Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, Meryl Streep, Colin Firth and Angela Lansbury.
MARY POPPINS RETURNS is a return worth waiting for.
Reverent but refreshed, referenced with respect rather than regurgitation, it’s lively and vivid, joyous and gorgeous and charming not at all cloying, and all together entertaining.
A sweet surrender to a major charm offensive.