Mamma Mia!
This adaptation of the popular stage musical where songs from the 70s disco group ABBA are used to āprogress the storyā wouldāve worked a lot better if the songs had any real relevance to the plot at hand. Sure, there are some catchy dittys here, but the disconnected feeling they evoke merely give the impression of the characters randomly bursting into song (and itās always one from ABBA). Meryl Streep in the lead role is the perfect example: Her singing is actually really good and professional, yet zero emotion is evoked because we canāt see why what sheās singing has to do with anything. Then there is Pierce Brosnan, who has the opposite effect, but in a bad way. His warbling is so atrocious that the viewer canāt help but stay riveted to the screen whenever he gets a number, mostly to just fall out of their chair laughing their ass off at his lame attempts (watching him try to perform āSOSā is funnier than anything you see in a Seth Rogan comedy). As Streepās daughter who sets the plot in motion with her attempts to track down her long-lost father, Amanda Seyfried is the sole bright spot acting-wise: radiant and beautiful and coming off as genuinely sweet, Seyfried stakes her claim as a star of the future here. Dominic Cooper as her fiancĆ©e, though, makes no impression to the point where they could just have had a wax dummy play his part and do an equally good job. As Streepās sisters who come out for the wedding, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski are ghastly caricatures who almost make the viewer physically ill every time they are on camera (particularly a shame with Walters, who was very cute back in 1983 with her Oscar-nominated turn in Educating Rita, and now resembles a dried-up prune). Stellan Skarsgard and Colin Firth make no impact on the film whatsoever, and come off as two actors being used to fill obligatory slots in the storyline. Donāt get the impression that Iām a hater of musicals by this review, as I absolutely adored Moulin Rouge and many others of the genre, but this is a true example of a very bad musical, with cardboard characters and motivations, and Streep, Brosnan, and the main cast are reduced to making fools of themselves during the end credits by just randomly spewing out different ABBA songs, since the screenplay ran out of steam long ago. In addition, there is a revelation during the final moments that one of the main characters is actually GAY, with no buildup or pretense at all, straight out of left field, and one wonders how this film actually passed muster with a PG-13 rating with something like that. In the end, a very bad musical, and yes, Iāve seen enough good ones to know what that looks likeā¦
4/10