Saw the movie last night. I thought it was great. The music was so good I went and bought the soundtrack. The story followed similar beats to the 1964 movie, but story was never Mary Poppins's strong suit (the books were each a series of mostly unconnected vignettes, the first movie was those vignettes fitted onto a plot about Mr. Banks becoming more attentive of his children). This time they manage to add in a couple of "beat the clock" action set pieces.
And since I'm kind of "book to movie" guy (it comes up on my blog fairly frequently):
Emily Blunt's performance as Mary Poppins is fantastic. It's probably the best middle ground you could find between the Mary that P.L. Travers wrote and the one Julie Andrews brought to the big screen. She's not as frequently cross as Travers's character nor does she fit the physical description. However, she plays up Mary Poppins's sternness, her vanity and the sense of mystery around her. One thing I love is how Blunt depicted Mary's vanity. Andrews would primp every time she was in front of a mirror. Blunt looks in the mirror, primps and then gives herself a self-satisfied smile like she's thinking "Damn, I look good". There's a number of things taken from the books that Poppins fans will recognize. Most of the scenes are taken from something in the books (The Royal Doulton Bowl, Cousin Topsy Turvy, etc). But there are littler things too. The Banks children John and Annabel have the same names as two of Jane and Michael's younger siblings (there were five Banks children in the books). Georgie is probably just named after Jane and Michael's father. A number of the side characters like Mrs. Lark, Admiral Boom and the Park Keeper all show up. In the music hall sequence, the books appear to have Travers's chapter titles as titles. Plus, the entire story about the "Dirty Rascal" is worked into the song. One of the biggest things I liked is that in this movie it feels less like Mary Poppins is just the one who's magic and more like she's also revealing magic that already exists in the world, which is how the books were.