Blind Prophecy

Remember how I promised I’d stop loving every single movie I see this year?

I don’t get it. Mamma Mia has all the elements of a movie I would love. Hot guys, Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, people who burst into song and dance, disco music… somehow, though, it just didn’t come together for me.

Meryl Streep was great, of course, but that like saying “mom’s batch of secret-family-recipe eclairs taste yummy” – some things are just a given. Christine Baranski was born to play a liquor-drinking cougar. Julie Waters was delightful. And ABBA music is designed to stick in your head long after you’ve left the theater.

So where did it all go wrong? I think it might have been the fourth time Sophie inexplicably ran uphill to another picturesque but indistinguishable part of the island. Or maybe it was when Colin Firth put his fellow male actors to shame by deciding to buck the general trend and act despite the script calling for neither emotion nor personality in any character with testicles.

Dear Hollywood, I know that Rex Harrison’s performance in My Fair Lady is considered a classic. It’s also a classic of casting someone who can’t sing in a musical lead role and letting them act their way through it. Johnny Depp, bless his heart, still managed to make an interesting and watchable Sweeney Todd. Pierce Brosnan is no Rex Harrison. He’s not even Johnny Depp.

But you know what the real problem is? It’s a jukebox musical. Take the songlist of a particular band or artist and try to shove them into a plot they were never meant to support. ABBA only gave us about 100 songs to work with, so there will be some subplots that exist solely to make room for certain required billboard hits. Also, to pad out the story a bit, we’re going to waste lots of time watching pointless dance numbers on the beach or at the wedding because there just aren’t enough songs without them and there’s no way they can actually move the plot forward.

Mamma Mia runs 1hr, 48 minutes. The story could have been told in 48 minutes without sacrificing an iota of depth or plot. The only reason for the extra hour is to include more ABBA tunes. Normally that would be fine, I’m enough of a fan, but I can listen to ABBA Gold at home. By the time we hit the overblown adaptation of “Winner Takes it All” I was bored of the pathos, the strained conflict (I hate when the plot can be resolved by one character saying, “shut up for 1 minute and listen”), and the ooh-look-how-pretty Greek island.

I’m also going to complain that there weren’t enough scenes featuring shirtless Dominic Cooper. There were several, but not enough…

Bottom line, I wanted to like it, I really did, but I couldn’t wait to get out of the theater after about 45 minutes.

Filed under: movies, theatregeekery by Jere Keys