Reel Reviews

Saving Mr. Banks -- I’m uncertain here. The positive sign could just as easily be a so-so mark. It’s hard to get a handle on whether this is a really good movie or not. This film features fine performances from a lot of really good actors; then again, in at least one case (Emma Thompson in the P.L. Travers role), that good performance makes for a rather unlikeable character. Some of the backstory scenes take way too long to tell their tale--we get the drift long before that curtain closes--and the film drags in those sequences. But those are forgivable lapses, given the overall quality of the thing. I’ll stick with the positive, but I won’t argue very hard against anyone who says otherwise.