Review by New York Post

Pigs fly and perform a Busby Berkeley-style water ballet. Maggie Gyllenhaal sports a posh British accent. Everybody steps in dung repeatedly.

These are the high points of “Nanny McPhee Returns,” an overlong and overproduced sequel to the dimly recalled 2005 family flick written by and starring Emma Thompson as the poor kid’s Mary Poppins, a snaggle-toothed magical nursemaid with hairy moles.

That one was set in Victorian London, but this time McPhee lands in the midst of the English countryside during World War II — which, I think, is going to require a serious premovie parental tutorial for most contemporary American children.

Review by Susan Granger

Rarely do sequels equal or exceed expectations but this comedy does, offering broad slapstick that’s guaranteed to elicit laughter from small children and their parents. Emma Thompson reprises the magical character she created in 2005’s “Nanny McPhee,” based on Christianna Brand’s “Nurse Matilda” books, not only starring but also writing the screenplay, as she did with the original.

Set during World War II, the family that the warty, uni-browed, snaggletoothed Mary Poppins-like Nanny visits this time is headed by a stressed-out mother who lives in the English countryside. While her soldier husband (Ewan McGregor) is off fighting, Mrs. Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her three children – Norman (Asa Butterfield), Megsie (Lil Woods) and Vincent (Oscar Steer) – are struggling to survive. Their lives are further complicated by the arrival of two spoiled, precocious cousins – Cyril and Celia (Eros Vlahos, Rosie Taylor-Ritson) – who have been dispatched from London in a purple Rolls Royce to escape the bombing – and a scheming subplot attempt by their devious, despicable Uncle Phil (Rhys Ifans) to sell off their farm to pay off his gambling debts.

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Review by detnews.com

Nanny McPhee is back to teach a new batch of children life lessons in “Nanny McPhee Returns,” the mixed sequel to 2006′s “Nanny McPhee.”

McPhee, played by the regal Emma Thompson, is a hideous creation: Hairy moles dot her face, her unibrow is an unfettered mess, and an elongated bucktooth protrudes over her bottom lip. That those blemishes begin to disappear each time her kids learn from her teachings offers a somewhat disturbing statement on the value of physical beauty.

In the film, penned by Thompson and based on Christianna Brand’s “Nurse Matilda” books, McPhee arrives to help Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who’s in over her head trying to save her family’s farm. She has three young children and also is caring for her niece and nephew, while simultaneously trying to block her deadbeat brother Phil (Rhys Ifans) from selling the property to cover his gambling debts.

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