This is a solid entry in the cozy mystery genre, albeit a little more edgy in a few places than your standard 1960’s BBC fare. It plays out like any other Agatha Christie story and although I can’t add much more without spoiling the mystery, I can safely say it’s one of the best Miss Marple mysteries I’ve seen.
Closest comparison: It’s like Sunset Boulevard by way of the BBC cozy mysteries.
Setting: Town Drama
Plot: Cozy Mystery
Tone: BBC TeleDrama
This movie is a mild failure on many levels. Its setup is a ripoff of Mary Poppins and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, the child characters are fairly unlikeable, and the cartoon other world has no internal consistency of theme. It has a great nugget of an idea in the Witches Correspondence School subplot, but it gets lost in the shuffle of “and now this is happening” plot beats. The finale is a good idea on paper but leaves excitement on the table in favor of what were at the time impressive visuals.
Closest comparison: It’s like Mary Poppins by way of The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming, without the self-awareness.
Setting: Civilian War
Plot: Hidden World
Tone: Family
Tasked with the impossible, this movie does quite well. No one can recreate Julie Andrews’ iconic performance, but Emily Blunt does a great job as the character. There’s singing and dancing, as one might expect, and it follows the beats of the original movie in a way that is more comforting than distracting. Still, it finds plenty of new things to do. They go into a cartoon world again, but this time it’s a ceramic bowl. There are villainous bankers again, but this time with more tie-ins with the children. They even manage to have tear-jerking song that far surpasses the heartfelt “Feed The Birds”. If you like the original, definitely give this one a watch.
Closest Comparison: It’s an updated Mary Poppins with a new coat of paint.
