Great family entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (19 March 2014)

I'll be honest, there was only one reason I watched this film: Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. However, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
While I've seen "Mary Poppins" dozens of times in my child years (they're like adult years but you're younger), I honestly didn't think a film about Disney trying to finagle the rights away from author P.L. Travers would have been that interesting of a film but I was surprised by how great of a family film the movie proved to be.
Emma Thompson is simply fantastic as Travers as she captures, pretty much perfectly, a character that is intentionally annoying her rights-suitor, who viciously defends her property, who is deep down a broken and sympathetic character and is amusing the entire time. The scenes she shares with, literally, anyone in the film just keeps the story flowing amazingly well and are a joy to watch. Whether it be her annoying the song writers trying to give her a feel for how the movie is going to be, Walt Disney trying to prove that Poppins is in good hands or just Paul Giamatti's character (Travers' driver) trying to melt her icy façade, all these scenes just work to create a character that is not only interesting to watch but crafts a story that unfolds at a terrific pace and is touching the entire way through.
And you can't forget that the movie gives you Tom Hanks as Walt Disneythat's just awesome! "Saving Mr. Banks" is a terrific family film that showcases the hoops the Disney company went through to bring the iconic film with Julie Andrews to the screen. The movie is touching, funny and heartwarming and has just the right amount of sap and cheesiness to make it a great family film and great enough to overlook the inaccuracies of Travers being okay with the final product (Spoilers: She actually hated the film and never forgave Disney for it).
Greetings, Earthling! If you wanna, you can read more reviews of mine at my blog (some of which contain Tom Hanks and his aura of awesome). Just rocket on over to revronmovies.blogspot.com. Or don't, it's up to you.