By Aaron 7/23/2008
Despite my corny jokes about how a movie could even think of opening opposite The Dark Knight I did see Mamma Mia. And my joke blew up in my face when Mamma Mia grossed about $27 million – the highest opening for a musical. Not bad considering the movie got panned by the critics and had to open against a movie that raked in almost $160 million!
The summary shouldn’t take long because the story was pretty weak. Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is 20 and getting married but desperately wants to meet the father she has never known. Raised by her mother Donna (Meryl Streep) on an island resort off the coast of Greece, Sophie has led a pretty sheltered life. That changes when she finds her mother’s diary and determines her father must be one of three men her mother loved one summer and invites all three of those men to her wedding. They arrive, and in true Hollywood fashion coincidentally meet each other. Unlike Hollywood however, they exhibit zero jealousy or competition towards each other despite the onus that each assumes they will win Donna back.
That’s really it – and that’s also where the movie starts to go wrong. The drama/comedy should be derived from this supposed “conflict” over whom Donna will choose but neither man really tries to win her heart. Unlike other movies who try to keep other plotlines alive or even get fancy with multiple different conflicts the characters have to resolve, the move tries to get by without any real conflict. Even when the movie tried to have conflict it was either resolved quickly or not resolved at all without any bearing on the story. Chalk up the fact that there are no antagonists and you have a pretty flat movie.
It didn’t help this musical that the music was pretty disappointing. On one level I’m not really a big ABBA fan, but on another level, some of the people (James Bond) couldn’t really sing. Then you think about it and realize that the music didn’t really fit – at all. Sure the movie is a “jukebox musical” that crams in pre-written songs but the mood/tempo was almost always wrong. Even with a story that offered itself up at least one freebie (that Donna and her friends were a former pop group) most of the music seemed to have terrible timing. Even when the music was good it was used up early so the remaining movie offered little more than ABBA’s filler songs and the hope that “Mamma Mia” would get a reprise. It doesn’t help that the choreography is cheesy and annoyed, accompanied by terrible camera shots and weak direction that leave the song numbers feeling like poor music videos (with a few exceptions of course).
When the plot is weak and the music can’t carry the film the only leg left to stand on is the acting. Unfortunately it wasn’t exactly this movie’s “strong suit.” I don’t usually let this bother me but the casting seemed a little weird. Meryl Streep played the mother of a twenty-year-old daughter, which is still doable for her I guess. But the fact that Streep was supposed to be the same age as her daughter was now (20), which would make her forty, it gets a little iffy because Streep is 60 and looks 60. Evey though Seyfried did well and Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan tried their best, I couldn’t help thinking that nearly every casting was wrong. Well, Streep’s two friends were pretty funny – probably the only good part of the movie.
To make things even worse (yes, it’s possible it can get worse), there was pretty much zero character development. Key turning points in terms of a character’s history or motivations are never explained. Every character lacks any depth that would give them legitimacy or even empathy. But I’m getting tired of ripping into this movie – I did have a good time seeing it I guess. So I can be charitable and give it 4/10 saltystix.
If you want to know why I haven't reviewed TDK yet I have an answer - I'm waiting until I see it again. If you want to read what I wrote while putting off my review, you can click here. If you have other questions or comments for me, don't hesitate to shoot me an email at aaron.saltystix@gmail.com.