Michael Lown
BartoMamma Mia!: here we go again
July 18th 2008 03:39
I wish I knew what to make of Mamma Mia. I went in with such overwhelming goodwill towards the whole thing, and in the end it feels like it failed to match me on that. True, the enthusiasm of the cast and crew is evident throughout the film, but it doesn’t make up for the shocking performances peppered through it, the boxy staging and the fact that some of the ABBA songs wedged into the plot are profoundly ill-suited for those moments.
At least they didn’t try and justify attaching Super Trouper to a plot point – that would have signalled the death rattle of the whole thing.
Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is preparing to get married, and wants the father she’s never met to walk her down the aisle. After stealing her mother’s (Meryl Streep) diary she deducts there are three candidates for the job. She invites them all – Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard turn up – and all hell breaks loose. Oh, and for some reason it’s all set on a Greek island.
As I am still trying to come to terms with the entire thing I am just going to have to break it down into good and bad. Meryl is good. Despite herself, or because of herself, you can’t help but love her when she plays goofy, and her voice is strong. Streep gets all the best songs (Mamma Mia, Money, Money, Money) and sequences – they are fun, clever and they suck you in. The use of an actual Greek chorus is a touch of genius – their off-the-wall contribution adds a lovely surreal element. I would say all the women are well cast – Seyfried does well with a potentially bland and annoying character.
The bad? Anyone who ever asks Brosnan to sing again should be charged. Let us all consider this a valuable lesson, and walk away. I would say ‘no harm, no foul’, but listening to him warble makes me inclined to disagree. He is hazardous with a tune. Where the women fit their roles and find a natural flow, all the men (including Dominic Cooper as the fiancé) are awkward, painful and under-developed. If you told me they accidentally gate-crashed the movie while sailing through the area I would believe you – they just don’t belong.
The whole project could have done with a fresh set of eyes, rather than transferring in the team from the original stage production. A lot of the dance numbers are stagey – they don’t make any really creative use of the stunning setting. Also, taking it away from the over-the-top stage show really serves to highlight how completely ill-suited half the songs are to the plot (Our Last Summer and Lay Your Love on Me were heinous).
It’s pretty, occasionally catchy, and it has a cast I like. Half the people I know who’ve seen it love it, and a good chunk of the rest claim to have died a little while watching it. My problem is I still want to like it, but I just can’t. The first 30 minutes are solid, good fun. The rest – not so much. And because of the restraint I have shown throughout this review I get to say this: I had a dream that this would be good, so I took a chance on it – I said I do. They took my money, money, money but I could not lay my love on it. The winner may take it all, but all I was doing was crying SOS. Waterloo.
At least they didn’t try and justify attaching Super Trouper to a plot point – that would have signalled the death rattle of the whole thing.
Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is preparing to get married, and wants the father she’s never met to walk her down the aisle. After stealing her mother’s (Meryl Streep) diary she deducts there are three candidates for the job. She invites them all – Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard turn up – and all hell breaks loose. Oh, and for some reason it’s all set on a Greek island.
As I am still trying to come to terms with the entire thing I am just going to have to break it down into good and bad. Meryl is good. Despite herself, or because of herself, you can’t help but love her when she plays goofy, and her voice is strong. Streep gets all the best songs (Mamma Mia, Money, Money, Money) and sequences – they are fun, clever and they suck you in. The use of an actual Greek chorus is a touch of genius – their off-the-wall contribution adds a lovely surreal element. I would say all the women are well cast – Seyfried does well with a potentially bland and annoying character.
The bad? Anyone who ever asks Brosnan to sing again should be charged. Let us all consider this a valuable lesson, and walk away. I would say ‘no harm, no foul’, but listening to him warble makes me inclined to disagree. He is hazardous with a tune. Where the women fit their roles and find a natural flow, all the men (including Dominic Cooper as the fiancé) are awkward, painful and under-developed. If you told me they accidentally gate-crashed the movie while sailing through the area I would believe you – they just don’t belong.
The whole project could have done with a fresh set of eyes, rather than transferring in the team from the original stage production. A lot of the dance numbers are stagey – they don’t make any really creative use of the stunning setting. Also, taking it away from the over-the-top stage show really serves to highlight how completely ill-suited half the songs are to the plot (Our Last Summer and Lay Your Love on Me were heinous).
It’s pretty, occasionally catchy, and it has a cast I like. Half the people I know who’ve seen it love it, and a good chunk of the rest claim to have died a little while watching it. My problem is I still want to like it, but I just can’t. The first 30 minutes are solid, good fun. The rest – not so much. And because of the restraint I have shown throughout this review I get to say this: I had a dream that this would be good, so I took a chance on it – I said I do. They took my money, money, money but I could not lay my love on it. The winner may take it all, but all I was doing was crying SOS. Waterloo.
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