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Review: MAMA MIA! / Phyllida Lloyd (2008)

July 17th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Cinema or an aerobics class at Curves?

Mama Mia! (2008)
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Written by Catherine Johnson
Starring : Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth & Stellan Skarsgård
Running Time 108 min.
Aspect Ratio:

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Normally I am a firm believer that cinema should show no gender. Whether PR types, eager to brand their product, push them as chick flicks or dick flicks, there is no reason a woman can’t be blown away by Deliverance or a man Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

And then there’s Mama Mia! Oy vey is there Mama Mia!.

Like being breast-fed impalpable cheer for two hours, Mama Mia! is little more than a colorful travelogue with a bunch of sweeping shots of old broads doing calisthenics in the name of creative dance.

Amanda Seyfried is getting married and wants her father to give her away. The trouble is, the 20-year old is unsure which one of her mama’s past suitors spawned her so she invites the three likeliest sperm donors to her wedding in Greece.

From long before Three Loan Wolves right up to last year’s Definitely, Maybe (a much better film than Mia!), the “which one” premise has been played to death and if the only new wrinkle is the addition of ABBA tunes, blow out the pilot light!

I never thought I’d see the day when the words “You know, Shirley Valentine was better” would come out of my mouth.

While not a singer by any stretch of the imagination, at least Streep has the hubris to put across a song. The same is not true of Pierce Brosnan who managed to bring a momentary curl in my otherwise down-turned grin. Sadly, it was at his expense. Poor guy can’t carry a note in a proverbial bucket and there are a few heartfelt close-ups of him trying his best to sell a tune that will leave you howling.

Pierce Brosnan was allegedly so excited about sharing a screen with Meryl Streep and Julie Walters that he failed to ask producers how much money he would be paid.

This marks British theater and opera director Phyllida Lloyd’s first stab at movie-making. If she ever dispatched one of her operas with the same glib abandon she does cinema, elitists would call for her decapitation. As is, her camera cuts off more than its fair share of feet during the dance numbers.

Ms. Lloyd has no conception of how to make a movie musical. Numbers are adjoined two, sometimes three at a time. She positions the camera in as many different places as possible and for no apparent reason other than to stir up fresh cliches designed to showcase her paper-thin characters.

And talk about unbearable, am I the only one that wants to grab Julie Walters by the ankles and fling her through a plate glass window? Walters’ hyper performance as one of Streep’s childhood pals is the worst bit of acting I’ve seen this year. Her broad mugging and cloying asides seem to drag on for reels without once even bordering on wit or sophistication. She is now what she has always been - a two bit knock off of the equally insufferable Tracey Ullman.

Judging by the two block long line that packed the big Gaslamp Theatre for Tuesday night’s screening, audiences are going to swallow this whole. At least those in attendance weren’t out any cash. The winner takes it all and the losers are those who stand in line and pay top dollar to see this garbage.

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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical


Comments

6 Responses to “Review: MAMA MIA! / Phyllida Lloyd (2008)”

  1. John F. Schultz on July 17th, 2008 2:04 am

    You have more courage than I, sir. If this movie was being projected onto Cameron Diaz’s ass, I still would not see it. And I sat through “Sex and the City”.

  2. Stevie on July 26th, 2008 7:52 pm

    I liked Mama Mia. Entertaining.. I can’t sing and lots of popular singers can’t sing they just look sexey.. Thought the movie was enlightening.

  3. Scott Marks on July 26th, 2008 9:55 pm

    Meryl Streep hasn’t been sexy since “Manhattan” and Julie Walters…I’d rather fantasize about Jane Darwell. Aside from Brosnon’s piercing vocals and the vile Walters, I have no problem with the cast. It’s the abysmal direction that sickened me.

  4. John F. Schultz on July 27th, 2008 2:24 am

    Why do they have the stage directors directing the film versions of their shows? Did they learn nothing from the “nail the camera to the floor” film version of “The Producers”? At least the producers of “Hairspray” had the know how to hire someone who’s actually directed a few films before. (Granted, they weren’t very good films, but at least he had experience.)

    Speaking of which, there will be a “Hairspray 2″. John Waters is currently writing the treatment and the director and song writers are currently attached. Still, where’s “Pink Flamingos: The Musical”? Write a song for the singing a**hole. A love song for Edie and the Egg Man. “The Filthiest People Alive” in Pig Latin. The possibilities are endless. I know it didn’t work for “Cry Baby” on Broadway, but I would eat dogsh*t to see this.

  5. PJ on August 31st, 2008 2:44 pm

    I SAW IT TWICE AND I DO NOT CARE WHAT EVERY ONE SAYS. WITH ALL THAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS WORLD RIGHT NOW THIS WAS NOT NOTHING BUT FUN AND IF YOU WANTED YOU CAN SING TO IT THIS IS THE KIND OF MOVIE WE NEEDED. STOP JUDGING AND IN JOY WHAT LIITLE TIME WE ALL HAVE IN THIS WORLD. IN FACT I AM WAITING FOR IT TO COME OUT ON DVD AND TO GET THE CD.

  6. Scott Marks on August 31st, 2008 2:52 pm

    I was once in Joy, but we broke up.

    Fun AND you can sing-along, too? Gee willikers, perhaps I was wrong.

    With all that’s going on in the world right now you wasted almost four hours of your time watching MM twice? What could you have missed the first time through?

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