- Having two actors from the Paddington movie in the first scene in the house, where there is a plumbing leak and talk of marmalade was just distracting
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- The location of the MacGuffin is made so blatantly obvious early on, that every time the story returned to the hunt for it, I just felt frustrated that the characters were not on the same page as me. The Director is to blame for mishandling this aspect.
- Michael (the father) declares that they can't leave the house because it's full of all the memories of his recently dead wife, so he goes into a beautiful sad song about missing her and then starts to throw all of her old cr*p out in the rubbish. Er, hang on, so does he want to hang onto the memories, or discard them? Make up your mind script.
- The house really matters, saving it is what 90% of the film is built around. Then it's not important when the kids sing a song to their father. Then it's really important again and a big overly dramatic chase ensues in order to save it. Then the family learn the moral of the story, that the house isn't important in the end, as long as you have family. Then they get the house back and Mary Poppins leaves the instant the Banks are back in the house because the house was really important after all. Er, okay?
- The bit where Mary Poppins takes to a music-hall stage, puts on a saucy voice and sings a double-entendre laced song to the children was a bit weird wasn't it?
- The sister being a labour organiser goes nowhere, literally and thematically. Now I think on it, in what way did Mary Poppins save the sister? Saved her from being an important political figure and got her a nice boyfriend to settle down with?
- The sequence meticulously recreating the animation of old Disney films was really sad. Remember when Disney used to make new animated feature films? (it was 10 years ago) Sigh.
- What was with all the BMX bikes doing tricks in 1930s London?
- Van Dyke Ex Machina was the worst part. Dick has a charming little cameo at the end but a cameo in which he renders the entire preceding 2-hours irrelevant by saying, you know that MacGuffin, doesn't matter. So if Mary Poppins had not returned, the family would have kept the house anyway. Nice job writers.
- Why did the film come to it's natural end and then an entirely redundant new funfair scene starts up where the good characters rise up in some sort of balloon-based rapture and the evil character's balloon symbolically descends downwards. Bizarre.
- The final song is about the Banks father learning to be childlike again (simply because that's what the original ending was about) except this time the film is about the father nearly losing the house because he hasn't behaved like a responsible adult.
- This being basically a remake: They retain the "father learns that his family is more important than money" arc but forget that this new father is shown to know this from the start (That's why he is losing the house). Poor Ben Whishaw is forced to play both diametrically-opposite character traits, meaning he sometimes comes off as deranged, shouting at the children, then hugging them sweetly, alternately throughout the film.
- The subplot about the Banks father being an artist who has stopped painting is not resolved and the reasons for him not painting are only hinted at and not fleshed out.
- Colin Firth's baddie character was one dimensional.
- What happened to the bowl that was being repaired, which was so important in the middle of the film? Felt like a subplot that got axed.
- All the lamplighters endanger their lives in a dramatic climbing scene to turn Big Ben back 5-minutes, as Poppins stands there watching and doing nothing. They finally reach the top but can't reach. So Poppins flies up and does it her self. Pointless scene.
- The Banks father and sister have a brilliant plan to "fly a kite" up through a window, to save the house. Except the window is closed, so Poppins just does it instead. Pointless scene.
