Mary Poppins Returns

Saw Mary Poppins Returns on New Year's Day.  My favourite movie reviewer gave it 4.5 Stars out of 5.  He seldom gives a movie such a rating so I was excited to see it.  Now, never having seen all of the original movie, I did know it was a musical (not my favourite type of movie) and I did know the basic Mary Poppins' plot.  I was looking forward to the special effects and the acting.  It is a period movie, set in the early to mid 1900's in London England.  The movie starts off with the lamp lighter (or Leery as I learned from the movie) dousing the lamp flames to begin a new day, in song, of course. If is fun to watch the arrival of Mary Poppins and many of her magical moves.  There were a lot of songs, some of which seemed to go on and on.  I tried to follow the words of the songs, but with the English accents I found it difficult at times to understand them and the musical scenes (in my opinion) could have been shorter.  The movie, made for a young audience I suspect, went on for 2 hours and 10 minutes.  I know two of the younger audience members (6 to 8 years old) were squirming in their seats near the end.  I loved the inclusion of Dick Van Dyke.  That old 92 year old (at the time of filming) still has a lot of entertaining spunk.  And it was fun to see Angela Lansbury in her role as balloon lady.  I am glad I saw it.  I felt it was way too long and I am not certain that 4 years olds would enjoy it all that much although the older - yet still under 10 years old - kids said they enjoyed it.  I give it 3.5 out of 5 Stars.