Mary Poppins is an amazing film, and one of my personal favorites.
This review is on the 40th anniversary DVD, not the film itself -
actually this is more of a warning than a review. Please, avoid the
"enhanced home theatre mix" at all costs. It is truly attrocious.
The bass has been pumped to a ridiculous level; all the music
tracks have had a dull reverb applied and have been stripped of
their glorious high-end; and, most disgusting, new sound effects
have been added where there were non before, and others have been
altered. All of these alterations are totally unnessecary and
appalling from an artistic standpoint. The original theatrical mix
is PERFECT - nominated for an Academy award actually - EXCEPT, on
this DVD, they have mastered it at a much lower volume than the
g**awful enhanced mix. All this means is that when you choose the
Original Mix, you'll have to crank the volume to bring it to the
level of the rest of the DVD (trust me this is NOT a fault of the
original mix, it's how the DVD was authored). It's really sad that
Disney has molested such a fine sound mix, and on top of that, the
revised mix is the default option. Apparently the Australian and
Japanese versions of this release have the Original Mix as the
default option...
One more note of caution for film purists, it looks like they've
digitally erased some of the matte lines and wires used for the
special effects. Also, despite the pristine look of the picture,
the colors seem just a little off when compared to the raw live
action footage seen in the special features (footage which was
later mixed with animation. It would seem that if they are going to
color correct the film, they would use that footage as a reference,
but I could be wrong