Of all the places where Disney is going back to the well to find new success in old success, none may be quite as risky as Mary Poppins Returns. The Oscar-winning feature is special in the hearts of so many and the need to bring in a brand new cast means that a great deal needs to be different. However, based on the first trailer, it looks like the magic may truly be back. It's as practically perfect as Mary Poppins herself. Check it out.
The trailer lays out the basic plot of the story that sees Michael Banks raising a trio of children with the help of his sister Jane, apparently following the death of his wife. Mary Poppins arrives to help look after the Banks children. Both generations, it would seem. From there we get small snippets of the various song and dance numbers, an animated sequence that calls back to the original, and a small piece of Emily Blunt actually singing. As a trailer, it does its job, because I need to see the rest of this movie now.
I think it's Emily Blunt's delivery of the line "Oh yes, you too," which hooks me. It's the same sort of dry, sardonic, comment that Julie Andrews would have made in the original Mary Poppins. She shows how she feels, and that she's here to help, but in a way where she never actually comes out and states her feelings. As loving as Mary Poppins is, she rarely actually shows it directly to those people she cares for, and Emily Blunt appears to have nailed this.
There's a lot of little touches that make this look like they did everything right. The live-action/animated section that we see, while clearly done using modern technology, is still designed to look like 2D animation so that it reminds us of the sequence from the original film. Pixar was reportedly involved in creating the scene but that doesn't mean they felt a need to update it to more modern 3D animation.
And then, of course, there's Dick Van Dyke, Playing Mr. Dawes, the son of the second character he played in the original Mary Poppins, the trailer confirms that this won't be a simple cameo, he looks to get a song of his own, which is simply lovely.
On a related note, Lin-Manuel Miranda's accent is just ridiculous enough to work. If it was too good it just wouldn't feel like the right homage to Dick Van Dyke's Burt.
The first trailer for Mary Poppins Returns has hit every note that it needed to perfectly. The look, the tone, and the magic, all seem to be in place. Now, we just have to wait to see it all come to life this December.
