Not a really a spoiler, but the trailers certainly don’t indicate that “Saving Mr. Banks” is as much Colin Farrell’s picture as Tom Hanks’s. If this wasn’t a Disney picture, Emma Thompson’s unlikable P. J. Travers would have emptied the house after an hour. Obviously, something will happen because “Mary Poppins” did get made, but it’s a nervy performance without the compensation of funny/snide lines that make villains so much fun to play. Just a parade of depression-prompted and obvious put downs of Hollywood. There aren’t a lot of “the making of” actual productions (as opposed to fictional productions like “The Dueling Cavalier”) not about Orson Welles (there are movies about the making of “Citizen Kane” and the famous stage production of “Julius Caesar”), but an expert cast right down to the kids makes this a worthy addition to a very small genre.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 01:51:46 +0000