Possible spoilerMary Poppins she's not. Instead it's Emma Thompson with unbelievably bad teeth, serious warts, and a socially incorrect pet crow, who appears when she's needed the most (and wanted the least) in "Nanny McPhee Returns".Maggie Gyllenhaal is Isabel Green, a harried British farmwife with a husband off fighting World War II, three unruly children and their two spoiled brat London cousins, and a farm she's about to lose, pigs and all. Then Nanny arrives, ugly, mysterious and chock full of magical powers, and she doesn't take "We don't want you!" for an answer.The film is a pretty good mixture of sweet and sour, with plenty of magical moments and barnyard humor for the kids along with an underlying theme of wartime fear of loss. The mini-war between city and country kids is out of hand when Nanny shows up, and she meets a lot of resistance from all sides, but remains snaggle-toothed and unfazed.Amazing things keep on happening: pigs not only fly, they perform a water ballet, and the children slowly learn some important lessons about sharing and caring and hope and faith.An excellent supporting cast includes Rhys Ifans as Isobel's gambling brother-in-law, Ralph Fiennes as the cousins' big shot War Office father and Ewan McGregor as Isobel's soldiering husband.

Emma Thompson inhabits a league of premier global female film stars including Juliet Binoche, Tilda Swinton, and the foremost among them, Meryl Streep. So how bad could a children?s film written by and starring her be? Surprisingly awful, it turns out. Nanny McPhee is a long series of lame excrement jokes, unimaginative plot devices and by-the-numbers vignettes of bad behavior followed by redemption. Nanny McPhee -the magical Super Nanny and Mary Poppins rip-off ?begins by teaching 5 quarrelling children the first of 5 lessons using physical torture to get them to stop the fisticuffs. At least these scenes broke up the initial first fifteen minutes of uninterrupted references to poop from various sources. After these enhanced interrogation techniques, McPhee uses her magical stick to call into being stupid swimming piglets, flying motorcycles with sidecars and to gain access to the halls of WWII power. The story line defaults back to magical intervention to get the children to behave instead of taking the musical cue from Poppins and using clever psychology and dance numbers. Gyllenhaal is marshmallow as a mother, Thompson doesn?t give herself any good lines and the kids are non-descript with the exception of the unlikely named Eros Vlahos who is fun to watch as snooty Cyril. In short, wait for Thompson to return to a dramatic or classical role where her acting chops are put to good use.

After seeing all the positive reviews of this movie, I was hesitant to write a review, but as another reviewer so accurately pointed out, this movie lacked the magic of the first.I can't tell you how disappointed I was. The magic was simply and completely gone in this one.Admittedly, after seeing the terrible commercials for this film, I only rented it at Red Box (for $1 - glad I didn't spend any more!) due to two people being in it...Rhys Ifans and Maggie Smith...Smith being one of my favorite actresses.I won't go into detail about the plot (you're capable of reading and can read that for yourself) but will instead concentrate on what this movie lacked...and there was a lot of that.Gone was the magic of the first movie and yes, I realize that this is a sequel, not a re-make.None of the characters are worth caring about except Ifans and Smith. Ifans is such a royal pain that you simply want to reach into the TV and slap him for being such a nuisance and Smith is charming and much too adorable. Her character is a real delight.The kids, on the other hand, are terrifically boring and lackluster, the character of the mother was simply too over-the-top to even want to care about and what was with the squeaky voiced (and oh-so irritating) hit woman and her counterpart that sounded as if her male-esque voice was faked (because it was)? Might I ask what exactly they were supposed to bring to the movie except to make it ridiculous? Every time the frog voiced woman opened her mouth, I cringed.While I did appreciate the lovely scenery and the quaint farm (which redeemed this movie...somewhat) the only thing that saved it from a 2 rating, was the twist at the end that literally almost knocked me out of my chair.I must also comment on the absolute silliness that Nanny McPhee was now in the military as an Army Nanny (you're joking, right?) and in this one, Nanny herself seemed almost wooden and her lines, forced, as if she didn't want to be there and was simply going through the motions to get them done.In the first one, she was quaint, polished, magical and believable. In this one, she was laughable...and not in a fun or positive way.I was utterly sick after I finished watching this film, because the first Nanny McPhee is one of my favorite movies and even at my age, I watch it all the time. I was not looking forward to the terrible review I was going to have to give it and hate writing this.Vast, vast, disappointment...

Emma Thompson is back as both the writer and the star as Nanny McPhee, but this time hired a director. She "returns" but not to the same family. This is a whole new set of situations.It is during the war and the nice family is struggling to make ends meet and keep the farm while dad is away, fighting as an Army man. Relatives from London come to visit for a while and along with the kids in the family make an impossible situation. Until a knock on the door, and there she is Nanny McPhee, 'small c, capital P.' She is sent by the Army to help, but we know she has certain magical qualities, and rapping her walking stick on the floor or the ground makes wonderful things happen.Maggie Gyllenhaal is Isabel Green, the mother. Rhys Ifans is good as Phil Green, the brother-in-law who is no good, has gotten into debt by gambling, and is trying to get Isabel to sign the farm over to him. It is good to see Maggie Smith, here as Mrs. Docherty who seems to run the local store, badly.I must admit I had lots of trouble sticking with it during the first scenes, in the muddy barnyard, with animal feces everywhere and of course all the kids getting into it. But once Nanny McPhee showed up it got watchable. Still, not that enjoyable a movie for adults. Mostly silly stuff.