One look at "Nanny McPhee" and one could say that the movie is "Mary Poppins" on drugs. Sure the magic is still there, but Emma Thompson's McPhee is no where as pleasant to look at as Julie Andrews' Poppins.

Mr. Brown (Colin Firth), a funeral director, is in dire need of a new nanny for his seven children. However, these children spend their time terrorizing every single nanny that comes their way. The nanny service is no longer in service when it comes to this family.

Mr. Brown has no idea what to do, but he keeps hearing whispers that the nanny he needs is Nanny McPhee. One night she appears at the door. The shock of her appearance serves as a double entendre: She shows up without being requested and she isn't the prettiest of women, sporting a unibrow, a few warts and a snaggletooth.

Nanny McPhee says she only has five lessons to teach the children, but what she doesn't tell Mr. Brown is magic will be her secret to getting the point across. The children start to believe at first that Nanny McPhee is like the rest of their nannies, but with one tap of her cane, she proves that she is a force to be reckoned with.

Mr. Brown has got other things on his mind and he will let the nanny sort everything else out. The financial support for the family comes from the rich Great Aunt Adelaide (Angela Lansbury). Aunt Adelaide has given an ultimatum: Mr. Brown must remarry by the end of the month or she will cut the family off.

Mr. Brown has to make the choice of marrying someone he truly dislikes or being unable to care for his family. His unknowing children don't make the situation easy by being little terrors. Nanny McPhee does her best to keep the children in line, but when the children agree to accept the consequences of their actions, she won't stand in their way. If only Mr. Brown would open his eyes, he'd see that there is someone in his household who would marry him for love (and it's not Nanny McPhee).

Transformation is the key point, or moral, of the story. The entire Brown family and even Nanny McPhee transform.

The "Nanny McPhee," based on Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda books, is fun for the whole family. Thompson's screenplay is wonderful on the big screen. She's also almost unrecognizable as Nanny McPhee.

Firth moves away from his roles as the romantic lead and does well as the haggard Brown father. "Nanny McPhee" is a must see for any Firth fan. It's a shock to see Lansbury in the role of the villain, but see her part as a cranky old lady covered in appliqué flowers and blind as a bat.

However, the stars of the movie are actually the Brown children. Each child plays a different role, the smart one, the one that's always starving and so on. Especially well-suited in his role as Simon, Thomas Sangster is an obvious up and comer in his second movie released this month (the first being "Tristan and Isolde").

"Nanny McPhee" isn't a movie that should be shrugged off just because someone feels too old for fairy tales, sometimes that's the best type of movie.

Grade: AB