2018 was a year full of the release of great movies for all ages ending with a modern take on on a famous classic. “Mary Poppins Returns,” rated PG, was released everywhere in the United States on December 19, 2018. The cast consisted of A-listers Emily Blunt ( Mary Poppins), Lin-Manuel Miranda (Jack), Julie Walters (Ellen), Meryl Streep (Topsy), Colin Firth (William Weatherall Wilkins), and Dick Van Dyke (Mr. Dawes Jr). The acting was believable, but Miranda’s accent seemed slightly forced compared to the English cast. The film was released 54 years after the original, but still brings the magical and joyful charisma that Mary Poppins has always had.

The movie is set in London in the 1930s. The original Banks Children, Michael and Jane, have grown up and now Michael has children, Georgie, John, and Annabel. Within the year before Mary Poppins arrives, Michael Banks loses his wife and the children lose their mother. Michael has to pay back a loan he took from the bank to support his family within a week, but he does not have enough money. If he does not pay back the loan, the family will lose their home, the same one Jane and Michael grew up in.

The villain, Firth, works to find ways to stop Michael from getting any money because he desperately wants the house. When Mary Poppins arrives, the children go on adventures including in a ceramic bowl and inside the bath learning new lessons and dancing along the way.

The movie consists of an entirely new soundtrack including: “(Underneath The) Lovely London Sky,” “Can You Imagine That?”, “Trip A Little Light Fantastic,” and “Nowhere To Go But Up.” The cast had great singing voices, but I wish there were a few songs incorporated into the movie from the original with Julie Andrews like “Spoonful of Sugar.”

The movie was not as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as the original, but it was a close second. The animation of the movie was great along with the choreography for the dance numbers. The movie taught life lessons to both the adults and children including “There is nowhere to go but up!”