Saturday, January 03, 2009

Mamma Mia! the movie


The DVD of the film Mamma Mia is the biggest selling video ever in the UK and, getting swept up in all the hype, Jan got it as one of her Christmas presents.
Well, we watched it yesterday and your trusty film reviewer here was not impressed. I thought that it was pretty poor, mainly because they chose a bunch of stars, presumably to increase its trans Atlantic appeal, who can't sing and can't dance. Maybe when they were younger they could sing and dance, but now they are all too old and fat to dance appealingly (something you would understand - Ed) and fairly dire singers. Watching Meryl Streep writhing about on a roof top was not nice.
The plot was woven around the songs, which was pretty clever, and needless to say the songs are good, assuming that you like Abba. But there were one or two irritating facets about the film which irritated throughout.
First was the poor singing performance of the big name stars and second was the frantic pace of the action. Generally, the action mimicked an exaggerated live performance, something you would expect at the theatre, but that was so unnecessary in a film.
Jan, who admits to liking 'chick flicks' and who has a much higher pain threshold than me, was also disappointed. Which says a lot really.
And finally, exactly who was her father? That's something you will only understand by watching it.
If you have to see it, borrow it, don't buy it. Or, if you want to buy one cheap?

1 comment:

martin said...

Wendy got this from Blockbuster over Christmas, and called me in the car to tell just how bad it was......Hype is a wonderful thing.