Practically perfect in every way
SPOONFUL of nostalgia – make that several heaped spoonfuls – helps the joy-infused medicine of Rob Marshall’s 1930s-set musical fantasy go down in the most delightful way.
Based on the books by PL Travers, Mary Poppins Returns prescribes two hours of pure, sentiment-soaked escapism to banish the winter blues and jiggedy-jog our weary souls.
It’s a lavishly staged carousel of whoop-inducing song and dance numbers that kicks up its polished heels in the face of cynicism and affectionately harks back to the 1964 Oscar-winning classic directed by Robert Stevenson.
Musical refrains from Chim Chim Cher-ee, Let’s Go Fly A Kite and The Perfect Nanny among others are seamlessly woven into the lustrous fabric of Marshall’s lavishly embroidered picture.
Plot threads are admittedly gossamer thin and noticeably frayed in places.
Karen Dotrice, who played Jane Banks in the original, has a lovely cameo as an elegant lady in search of 19 Cherry Tree Lane and Dick Van Dyke proves he can still step in time as chairman of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank.
Emily Blunt is practically perfect in every way, making her entrance with a reverential nod to Julie Andrews – “Close your mouth, Michael. We are still not a codfish!” – as the London-born actress makes this iteration of the role her own with effortless efficiency.
A new songbook by composer Marc Shaiman and lyricist Scott Wittman, writers of the Hairspray and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory stage musicals, lacks the immediately hummable melodies conjured by Oscar winners Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman.
However, when ditties hit their emotional mark, they are spit spot on. A father’s heart-wrenching lament to his late wife is delivered with tearful restraint by Ben Whishaw, while Meryl
Streep – with an east
European accent of hysterically indecipherable origin
– swings from a chandelier during her scene-stealing solo,
Turning Turtle.
It has been a year since Michael Banks (Whishaw) lost his wife Kate, and with it the light in his heart to guide their children Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh) and Georgie ( Joel Dawson).
His rabble-rousing sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) helps to care for the brood but the grief-stricken father is three months in arrears on a bank loan secured against 17 Cherry Tree Lane. Unless Michael can repay his dues in full by the end of the week, the house will be seized by bank chairman William Wilkins (Colin Firth).
The family, including clucky housemaid Ellen ( Julie Walters), will be homeless on the streets of London.
Thankfully, a high-flying kite snags magical nanny Mary Poppins (Blunt), who rekindles sparks of joy in her former wards, aided by Cockney lamplighter Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) and Topsy (Streep), her eccentric “second cousin... many times removed”.
Before you can say supercalifragilistic- expialidocious, Marshall has us grinning from ear to ear as we accompany the Banks clan on their fantastical odyssey.
The sequel’s centrepiece, Trip The Light Fantastic, is modelled on Step In Time with its acrobatic troupe of lamplighters and syncopated choreography, and the aptly titled Nowhere To Go But Up soars courtesy of Angela Lansbury.
This Christmas and beyond, it’s an exceedingly jolly ‘oliday with Mary Poppins Returns.
AQUAMAN (12A)
O CE ANS rise and standards fall in Aquaman, a bloated origin story for the eponymous DC Comics superhero which capsizes in a tsunami of splashy digital effects and melodramatic storytelling.
Maine lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry (Temuera Morrison) discovers Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), Queen of Atlantis, injured on the shore and nurses her back to health. They fall in love and she gives birth to a boy called Arthur, who can breathe in water and communicates with aquatic life. “He’s living proof our worlds can co-exist,” coos Atlanna. Alas, the queen is forced to abandon her child and Arthur grows up believing that she died to give him life.
Years later, Mera (Amber Heard), daughter of King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren), visits Arthur ( Jason Momoa, above) and implores him to challenge his power-hungry half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), who has declared war on humanity.
If Arthur can locate the trident of Neptune and hone his fighting skills under the aegis of mentor Nuidis Vulko (Willem Dafoe), he might avert disaster. However, Orm is flanked by a vast army led by grief-stricken pirate Black
Manta (Yahya Abdul-Manteen II).
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (PG)
DAZZLING computeranimated adventure that introduces a menagerie of gifted spider-folks, who tick myriad racial, socio-economic and anthropomorphic boxes. There is a halfblack, half-Hispanic teenage hero, a sassy Asian female heroine, a grizzled old school crusader torn from the pages of a noir thriller, two markedly different reflections of Peter Parker ... and a talking pig. Laughs come thick and fast courtesy of a self-referential script that gleefully pokes fun at itself.
Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales, pictured (voiced by Shameik Moore), enrols in a boarding school at the behest of his parents. He takes a break from studies to spend time with his uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), who indulges Miles’s passion for street art by venturing into the sewers beneath New York City to paint a mural.
A radioactive spider bites Miles’s hand, imbuing the high school student with incredible powers.
Miles discovers he has inherited the same abilities as Spider-Man (Chris Pine), who recently died at the hands of crime lord Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber). The kingpin is conducting experiments, which disrupt the space-time continuum.
Consequently, a washed-up Peter B Parker ( Jake Johnson), Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Ham ( John Mulaney), brooding Spider-Noir (Nicolas Cage) and inventor schoolgirl Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) materialise in Miles’s bedroom.
They join forces with the teen to defeat a rogue’s gallery of villains including Green Goblin ( Jorma Taccone) and Doctor Octopus (Kathryn Hahn).