Mary Poppins Returns - Barney's Incorrect Five Second Reviews

Took my 7-year old girl to see this and she absolutely loved it. I wasn't sure about it being over 2 hours long and having SO many songs, but I don't think I was the target audience necessarily. Then again, I had seen the original and Emily had not so I'm not sure who it was going to appeal more to.

More than once Emily whispered to me, "daddy, there are lots of songs in this" and I don't think she meant it in a good way. It really did seem like they were breaking out into song way too often and I guess that's life in the musical lane but still. The only good song was really the balloon one, and that's another problem given the original has many songs that stick in your head for a long time afterwards. I would love to have edited out some of the song numbers to make this film a bit tighter and ultimately more memorable.

The magic elements were really well done and as much as I liked the cameo by Dick Van Dyke, it was the Angela Lansbury appearance that really took me by surprise. She just felt part of the world in a really good way, whereas Meryl Streep felt a little out of place to me.

Definitely a movie to bring your kids to. I kept getting asked questions like, "are there really people that light streetlights as a job?" and cute stuff like that.

Emily Blunt is a good fit for Mary Poppins, but the dad (Ben Whishaw) kept being a distraction as he's so easily recognizable as the voice of Paddington. Every time he spoke, I had a craving for marmalade. This actually becomes a real problem as I'm constantly reminded that this isn't measuring up to either of the Paddington movies in terms of pure perfection.

At least it was consistent with all the bank-hating.