Mary Poppins Returns To Save Your Childhood

Mary Poppins has returned and she hasn’t aged a single bit. (But of course, one should never discuss a woman’s age, right, Mary?)

The beloved magical nanny is back with all her British nanny sensibility. She’s still the same no-nonsense lady that likes to teach you lessons in the most unexpected ways, like singing a lullaby where the lyrics are “stay awake, don’t rest your head” to put Jane and Michael Banks to sleep. Oh, Mary.

This time, she’s here to take care of the Banks children. Oh, and Michael Banks’ children, too. The Mary Poppins sequel is set roughly 20 years after the first one, with Michael Banks now a father of three and Jane Banks taking after her mother, holding protest signs in the trailer. Fans of the old movie would recognise a lot of things in the trailer, like the Banks’ foyer where Mary Poppins barged into the Banks’ lives, or St. Paul’s Cathedral where Mary Poppins sang a beautiful song about caring for the less fortunate. It’s a lot of nostalgia for those who love the 1964 movie.

It truly does feel like an updated version of the 1964 Mary Poppins. There are the classic mixed reality scenes, where live-action actors perform alongside 2D characters (with better graphics, of course) and even a better cockney accent out of Bert, now played by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In the Heights). The only gripe we have is that Julie Andrews seems to be nowhere in sight. Though Emily Blunt makes a good Mary Poppins based on the trailer, Julie Andrews is Mary Poppins. Blunt has proven that she can sing very well in Into The Woods, but she’s no Julie Andrews in her prime.

Julie Andrews is mysteriously absent from the trailer (though we’re still crossing our fingers that she’ll make a cameo a la Stan Lee somehow), but the movie is definitely not lacking in the star department. Along with Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mary Poppins Returns will boast a cast consisting of Ben Wishaw, Emily Mortimer, Colin Firth, Meryl Streep, Angela Lansbury, and last but not least, the one and only Dick Van Dyke, the original Bert. Hopefully minus the atrocious cockney accent.

Mary Poppins Returns will premiere on December 19, 2018, just in time for Christmas.

Dea Ratna

Dea wishes she could play the latest Tomb Raider or Uncharted, but she can’t, so instead she reads and watches other people play. On her down time, you can probably find her re-reading Captain Marvel. The Carol Danvers one.