Mary Poppins Returns Blu-ray review

Mar 19, 2019- Permalink

When Mary Poppins Returns hit theatres, I said my quick take was this: “Emily Blunt and Mary Poppins Returns both had big shoes to fill. It’s a perfect fit.” You can now take the fantastic English nanny home as Disney releases both 4K and Blu-ray versions. I had a chance to preview the Blu-ray combo pack.

The 1080p AVC-encoded transfer is in the film’s original 2.39:1 aspect ratio. The video presentation reflects the moods of the two real and fantasy worlds very well. The early London scenes are dark and dreary, populated with gray and washed-out blue tones, street lamps reflecting puddles left by the dreary clouds above. When Mary takes her young charges off to the more fantastical places and animated worlds, the colours pop. Details, whether it be on clothing, furniture, faces, or trees are crisp and complex and the animated lines are clean. Skin tones are natural and the black levels and contrast are spot on. Very little digital noise or artifacts are seen throughout.

On the audio side, your ears have their choice of an English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 soundtrack and Spanish and French Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. Subtitles are available in English SDH, Spanish and French. Like all recent Disney home releases, the soundtrack is a little quieter than most reference levels, but again, the solution is just to turn it up a little. Just as Mary Poppins likes the children to be active for their health, your surround speakers will have a good workout, putting you in the centre of the action. It’s a musical and the soundtrack does not disappoint, with great tone in the music and clarity in the lyrics. Your subwoofer won’t get the same workout that it might in a Star Wars film, but when it is used it makes sense. Dialogue is clear and centred.

Mary Poppins was always able to pull amazing items out of her bags and her Blu-ray is stuffed with extras too. Besides a DVD version and a digital download code, the set also comes with a sign-along mode that puts lyrics up during the songs, a look at Dick Van Dyke’s cameo and the cast reactions, bloopers, a collection of shorts focusing on the shooting of the musical numbers, a deleted song, “The Anthropomorphic Zoo”, sung by songwriter Marc Shaiman, a lengthy featurette on the making of the film, and some deleted scenes.

Mary Poppins Returns is a lovely, sweet film that’s been given an excellent video and audio presentation by Disney. Well worth adding to your collection.