Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 11:55PM Movie Review - 'Mamma Mia!'
Mamma Mia!Starring Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Rated PG-13
I have decided to not
stop writing my review of
Mamma Mia! until I run out of bad things to
say about it. Pack a lunch; you're going to be here a while.
First, I should be a champ and tell you what I liked about it. OK, fair enough: Greece looks absolutely beautiful whenever this film was shot; though she hasn't needed to be impressive in her past few roles, Meryl Streep clearly still has that thing that only she has, especially when she belts out the only truly worthwhile musical number in the movie, "The Winner Takes it All;" and Amanda Seyfried (Big Love) is incredibly exuberant and happy to be here.
And now that that's out of the way...
You've been to a party or on a night out with friends and it's obvious to everyone that for whatever reason, the elements just don't mix. "Isn't this great," yells one of your friends over loud music, and you think, "No, it isn't great. It's boring. Why'd we come to this club, anyway?"
Your friend is trying to resuscitate the night with artificial feelings of fun and frivolity, and that's what's going on in Mamma Mia! Though it's staged and filmed so amateurishly that few of the individual scenes work, let alone a string of them, everyone in the cast jumps around and waves their arms and laughs. "Isn't this great," the movie asks you implicitly.
Based on the runaway stage production, which itself is based on a bunch of ABBA songs, Mamma Mia! isn't warm, isn't happy, and doesn't even make you sing along with "Take a Chance on Me," a feat heretofore thought impossible. The only laughs it gets are unintentional and at the expense of Pierce Brosnan, whose musical performance reminded me of Burt Reynolds in the woefully regrettable At Long Last Love or Lee Marvin in Paint Your Wagon. When one of your three leading characters is visibly uncomfortable nearly every minute he's onscreen, you've got a big problem.
The story goes that Sophie (Seyfried) is about to be married. Her mother (Streep) doesn't know who Sophie's father is, but since she has it narrowed to three, Sophie invites all three without telling them why. She believes she'll know her father instantly, and her life's past mysteries will be solved. It's a farcical story that, if done correctly, can be tremendously entertaining. The best farce I've seen in a while is last year's Death at a Funeral, and even though it's not a musical, that movie could show director Phyllida Lloyd a thing or two about timing, overacting, and comedy.
Mamma Mia! sludges through the first 40 minutes (I know because I looked at my watch the first time something remotely interesting happened) setting up the story and staging musical numbers that smack of incomprehensibility, even for a musical, which has different rules for such things.
But it's really not hard to follow the that protocol. In modern parlance, be more like Chicago and less like The Producers. Make the musical numbers feel borne out of the characters, not out of where the song goes in the sequence of things. After all, if the songs don't connect with the characters, their stories are essentially hijacked for four minutes while we watch hundreds of women sing "Dancing Queen" on a dock in Greece. I've heard "Dancing Queen," and I don't need to see it performed if it has no resemblance to what's going on in the story right then.
That's one of the reasons "The Winner Takes It All" is the film's best moment: It makes sense with where the story is and where the characters are, and it's a real showcase for Meryl Streep. Still, while she's singing her ass off, Pierce Brosnan is literally standing there with his hands in his pockets, such is the aimless direction of Ms. Lloyd.
I love the music and I like every major player on screen: Streep is a legend, Brosnan has been much better since he left Bond behind, I have no problem with Amanda Seyfried, and Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård (her other potential fathers) are both terrific actors. So why did I hate this so much?
I lay the blame at the feet of Lloyd, who is a first-time film director but has lots of experience in the theatre. But this isn't theatre, and the principles for acting, staging, choreography, and all the rest are entirely different in film.
Want proof? Watch Mamma Mia!
Reader Comments (26)
I find it interesting that yours is one of the few reviews that panned this film. I wonder if you didn't perhaps have a chip on your shoulder going in, or if you were just having a bad day?
Hi Sam -
Mine is not one of the few reviews to pan the film. In fact, according to Rotten Tomatoes, the average rating for Mamma Mia is 5.6 out of 10. If you scored 56% on a paper in school, that wouldn't be very good.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mamma_mia/
In fact, there are so many bad reviews that I've prepared a phony commercial for it:
Critics can't stop talking about Mamma Mia!
"I can see how Mamma Mia! might be a fun stage musical. As a movie musical, it's a train wreck," says The Oregonian.
The Newark Star-Ledger raves, "Even minor elements like sound editing and makeup are botched, a sure sign of carelessness, or cluelessness. Early scenes show characters forgetting to lipsynch to their prerecorded songs."
"The costumes look cheap, the choreography is clunky, and the cinematography's terrible - a real shame, given the gorgeous setting," declares The New York Daily News.
And Jeffrey Anderson of Combustible Celluloid proclaims, "Lloyd's film has no shape or tone; it swings wildly from sunny, haphazard scenes that play like outtakes, to higher-pitched, shrieking, hysterical scenes."
This has to be one of the biggest disappointments of the year!! You were right to say that the laughs came at the expense of Pierce Brosnan. When he started singing SOS, I laughed out loud. I overheard one young man who must have been dragged to the movie by his girlfriend say that he could nevew watch James Bond again. If this was Brosnan's first movie, he would have never been cast in another.
This has to be one of the biggest disappointments of the year!! You were right to say that the laughs came at the expense of Pierce Brosnan. When he started singing SOS, I laughed out loud. I overheard one young man who must have been dragged to the movie by his girlfriend say that he could never watch James Bond again. If this was Brosnan's first movie, he would have never been cast in another.
This film was NOT a disaster like most people are making it out to be. I have seen it twice and Its brilliant. Colin Firth is hilarious, as is Julie Walters. Pierce Brosnan has NOT ever had a singer role before, hence why he's first attempts were nt brilliant. However, he was good to watch. Meryl Streep is just AMAZING and NOONE can say otherwise. Amanda Seyfried was good too, although slightly rusty. I saw it and it had people off their seats where they were laughing so much at the performances shown on the big screen. I really enjoyed this film and those who didnt must be on drugs or something because I know I'd give it 5/5 stars, no questions asked. People probably disagree with me and I dont care but I had to point my review across!
I can't believe all the extreme negativity in some of these reviews such as by Colin Boyd. Yes, this was NOT Pierce Brosnan's finest hour. Yes, his voice was the weakest of the bunch,which made me question the casting decision of him. However, OVERALL, the film was BRILLIANT. In fact, when it was over, the whole audience cheered! Most people even stayed for the credits. Where do you see that? There were a lot of very subtle fun touches that made this movie very funny and touching as well.
Forget the negative reviews. They are taking this movie much too seriously. You will LOVE it. I guaranted the movie will be a blockbuster. We shall see who was right among the reviewers!
Well, that's the old argument about a movie being cleansed by its box office, and if that were true, Meet the Fockers is 10 times the movie United 93 is. Box office has no bearing on whether or not a movie is any good. You could argue that it has a place in that discussion, and then I'd bring up a horror movie you hate, but since it made a ton of money, it's obviously good. They're separate arguments.
I had no reason to dislike it going in. As a male critic under 40, I think I'm fair to musicals (both Moulin Rouge! and Chicago were in my top ten films of those years, and in fact, Singin' in the Rain is one of my ten favorite films of all time), but how can you call a movie "BRILLIANT" when one of the three main characters was as poorly cast as any role of the year? That's decidedly un-brilliant.
There are lots of little things wrong with this, and very few major things right with it. Streep is good, but she's the only singer who really distinguished herself. And if you weren't creeped out by the Christine Baranski number on the beach, you should go on Fear Factor.
I really wanted to like this movie--Meryl,Christine, Pierce, and Stefan(?),and I must admit--I LOVE ABBA. But this just didn't work for me at all! I was so disappointed. It's like when you make a popcorn ball--when it's right, you have a nice, cohesive treat, when it doesn't set, it's a big mess!
I really agree with you, Colin!