Mary Poppins Returns 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Mary Poppins Returns 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 15, 2019

Everything is possible, even the impossible.

Mary Poppins Returns has almost as much in common with Christopher Robin as it does its namesake, 1964's beloved classic Mary Poppins. Both Mary Poppins Returns and Christopher Robin deal with the idea that it's never too late to regain that childhood enthusiasm for discovery, that vivid imagination, the carefree approach to life. Neither film espouses shunning responsibility, but they do advocate finding balance between work and play. Christopher Robin did it better, more dramatically, more sincerely, while Mary Poppins Returns offers a more playful and musically inclined take on the idea. Poppins, here portrayed by Emily Blunt who capably stands in Julie Andrews' shoes, opens a new world to the Banks family and the new generation of children she nannies. The film works remarkably well 50+ years after the original, though obviously not quite that much time has passed in-film.

It's been a quarter-century since Jane and Michael Banks (Emily Mortimer and Ben Whishaw) first, and last, encountered super-nanny Mary Poppins. The Banks family is still living at 17 Cherry Tree Lane, but Michael is now a grown man and the father of three children: Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh), and Georgie (Joel Dawson). Michael’s wife and the mother of his children passed away a year ago. Jane has stepped in to help, but the siblings are in desperate need of guidance and a return to the carefree childhood the deserve to experience and enjoy. Meanwhile, Michael is set to lose his house to the bank, which has demanded he repay a loan he cannot afford in only one week’s time. When Mary Poppins surprisingly returns to the family’s life, it slowly becomes clear that she has returned not just for the sake of the children but also for Michael and Jane, who are in desperate need of recommitting to loving life rather than slumping through its hardships. Through several adventures that mirror those from the original film, Mary Poppins, the children, and a lamplighter named Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) set out to help Michael find a way to save the family home from repossession while they all learn to embrace their inner child.

The magic of Mary Poppins may manifest in (this film's) reality, but it’s rooted in the imagination. The Banks children begin the movie as “little adults,” discussing ways to save money at the market by buying day-old bread and dealing with a plumbing crisis at the house. But when Mary Poppins enters the picture and the children enter a magical portal to an underwater world by way of the bathtub, things begin to change. It quickly becomes apparent that Poppins hasn’t arrived solely to care for the children’s physical needs but also, and more importantly, to help them rediscover their imaginations and become “children” once more. In essence, Poppins wants them to act their age. Emily Blunt rediscovers the character’s personality in a nearly perfect portrayal. It’s not a mirror image of the Julie Andrews take on the character, though; Blunt doesn’t make Poppins entirely her own, but she does find the look and spirit and timelessness remarkably well. The young actors who portray the Banks children are also well cast and behave as believable siblings who go with the flow on a remarkable journey into rediscovering their childlike wonder. Lin-Manuel Miranda carries the film forward as Jack the lamplighter and in many ways mirrors Dick Van Dyke’s performance of Bert from the original film while also shaping the character into a unique individual (Van Dyke also makes a wonderful cameo late in the film).

The sets and costumes have been carefully created and bring a seemingly authentic recreation of 1930s London to the screen. But the film is obviously about far more than its setting. Fans of the original Mary Poppins will note many tributes to the original film, from subtle cues to large-scale recreations of key places from the classic original. The animated sequence is a particular highlight. While it is in many ways a familiar sight, it’s also, at the same time, its own creation with its own experiences for the characters, and the audience. The scene springs to life by way of both costuming and animation and plenty of good cheer on the screen. Exterior views of the famous 17 Cherry Tree Lane location, and the admiral's house next door, are remarkably well done. Practical sets with CGI support are seamlessly assembled and presented, while many of the film’s more magical and whimsical moments, whether a journey down into a bathtub or characters floating away while holding on to a balloon, seamlessly grab the audience. This is the very definition of “movie magic.”

Mary Poppins Returns 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.

Mary Poppins Returns' UHD release offers a modest upgrade over the 1080p Blu-ray. This is not a wholly revelatory image but rather a good fundamental tweaking of the material to add color depth and contrast as well as modest gains in sharpness and clarity. The film was digitally photographed, reportedly at a resolution of 3.4K. The resultant upscaled 4K image, bolstered by HDR color enhancements, produces a mild increase in sharpness, offering slightly more clear and nuanced textures across the board, whether considering London streets, attire, or faces. There's not a sudden or massive increase in raw detail, but the perceptible and predictable adds to sharpness do help bring out a little more textural finesse than the Blu-ray can offer.

Most of the image's areas of improvement can be traced to the enhanced HDR color palette, which offers an expanded color gamut and a deepening of the film's colors, whether the bleary and gray/blue opening all the way to the film's finale, where abundant color has taken over. The picture sees a gradual increase in color saturation as a stylistic visual aid to reinforce themes, and by the time the picture reaches its end, the HDR colors explode with extreme vitality that is much more intense and agreeable than the Blu-ray, where blue skies, green grasses, and colorful balloons offer greatly improved depth and contrast. The animated sequence is likewise a beneficiary mid-film, where the pastels enjoy the greater color depth and improvements to finely tuned contrast. Even the bleaker blue and gray scenes and locations enjoy added color depth, as do some of the warmer interiors, such as inside Wilkins' office at the bank. The UHD handles would-be problematic areas, like a few scenes featuring dense fog, with nary a hiccup or sign of banding. Light noise remains but no other encode or source flaws are apparent. This is not a significant upgrade over Blu-ray, but fans will appreciate the added sharpness and color boost the format provides; this is certainly the definitive home video version of the film.

Mary Poppins Returns 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mary Poppins Returns' Dolby Atmos soundtrack is not radically different from the counterpart Blu-ray's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack. It requires the now obligatory volume increase from calibrated reference listening levels. The track is proficient in all areas, though certainly not magnificent in any area. It's cheerful and carefree, offering plenty of surround usage in all of its key scenes and smaller moments alike, whether whimsical and magical adventures or when recreating city bustle and bank lobby din in chapter 11. The previous chapter yields one of the more prominent examples of overhead usage in the movie when Poppins and the children meet Topsy in her rotating room. The track never makes fully discrete use of the top end, but the added channels do create a fuller sense of spatial awareness and immersion in more involved scenes. Music is lively and clear with appropriately wide front end engagement and a healthy allotment of back channel support. The subwoofer chimes in to support a few canon shots used to signal time in the film. None of the blasts are prodigious, but they do offer enough of a low end push to satisfy the moment's sonic requirements. Dialogue is clear and well prioritized for the duration. It plays from a natural front-center position.

Mary Poppins Returns 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Mary Poppins Returns contains no extras on the UHD disc, but the bundled Blu-ray does offer a healthy allotment of extra content which is reviewed below. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. This release ships with an embossed slipcover. Note that a commentary track with Director Rob Marshall and Producer John DeLuca is available, but only with the digital version.

• Sing-Along Mode: Lyrics appear-on-screen during film playback. Accessible only when selecting the "Play" option from the main menu.
• Back to Cherry Tree Lane: Dick Van Dyke Returns (1080p, 5:22): Cast and crew discuss the impact of Dick Van Dyke's appearance in the film and how it shaped the production by returning an original cast member to the set.
• Practically Perfect Bloopers (1080p, 1:57): Humorous moments from the shoot.
• "Seeing Things from a Different Point of View": The Musical Numbers of Mary Poppins Returns (1080p): A collection of making-of shorts that focus on several of the film's musical numbers.
  
  
  • "Trip A Little Light Fantastic" (3:56): Cast and crew discuss the song's importance to the film, how the choreography developed as an homage to the original film, and how the cast exceeded expectations in the routine.
  • "The Royal Douton Music Hall"/"A Cover Is Not the Book" (7:05): Cast and crew discuss the fun and challenges of filming live-action sequences that show up in the animated world. The piece also explores green screen usage, costumes, and the type of historical musical numbers the filmmakers and music writers were trying to evoke with this song and dance routine.
  • "Turning Turtle" (3:01): This piece explores set design for the Topsy Turvy sequence and how the musical number came together.
  • "Can You Imagine That?" (4:03): A look at creating the magical sequence in the bathtub, including the slide used to move the characters into the underwater world, the rigging used to green screen the scene before the CGI was added, and the magic created by the sequence.
• Deleted Song - "The Anthropomorphic Zoo" (1080p, 5:04): From the disc: "The following sequence is an early concept for 'The Anthropomorphic Zoo,' a song that would have been placed where 'The Royal Douton Mucsic Hall' now appears. Please enjoy this demo recording, sung by songwriter Marc Shaiman and edited to rough story sketches."
• The Practically Perfect Making of Mary Poppins Returns (1080p, 23:38 total runtime): A four-part feature.
  
  
  • Introduction: Cast and crew discuss the timelessness of the original Mary Poppins and the challenges they faced in recreating the magic of the original film. Also discussed are choreography and filming a Broadway style musical.
  • "Underneath the Lovely London Sky": Discussions include recreating the set from the original film, the awe the actors felt while performing in a film they watched as children, and creating a new character for Mary Poppins based more on the books than Julie Andrews' classic performance.
  • "Can You Imagine That?": A closer look at Director Rob Marshall's contributions: the team he assembled, how he brought the musical film to life, filming various scenes (including Mary Poppins' introduction), and how the music came together as a defining characteristic in the film.
  • "Nowhere To Go But Up": This supplement highlights Angela Lansbury and Dick Van Dyke's work and impact on the film. It also explores the picture's theme: remembering the magic of childhood.
• Deleted Scenes (1080p): Included are Leaving Topsy's (0:55) and "Trip A Little Light Fantastic" (0:48).

Mary Poppins Returns 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's not an accident that the film's climactic finale involves manipulating time. That's the central idea here, both in terms of returning the children to childhood and the adults towards the whimsies and wonders of their youths. It's also about crafting a movie that is very much on point in its loving return to the simpler times when Mary Poppins dazzled audiences so many decades ago, finding an appropriate balance between respecting the original source and style and making this movie on its own terms. It's a very good return to a beloved world, and it is hands-down the best sequel ever made that's been 50-some years in the making. Disney's UHD offers modest improvements over the Blu-ray in terms of its video presentation, offering a slight increase in clarity and sharpness and a more pronounced improvement to color. The Atmos track isn't a massive upgrade from the Blu-ray's 7.1 presentation. Supplements aplenty are included, but the commentary track is digital only. Highly recommended.