Mama Mia Review

Cinematography:
The cinematography was pretty bad for the location and the styling. The long sweeping shots of the island it was set on were pretty good, but not excellent. They could have been more elegant. The close up shots were terrible and were pretty weird, especially in the dance numbers, most of which were mediocre at best from the vast expanse of them. It seems as if they did stage choreography in the movie, which doesn’t work at all.

Music:
The music was nice, I love ABBA a lot, and the song choice fit well with the movie. My only problem with it is that NONE of the actors could sing, except for Amanda Seyfried. Her voice is amazing, but Pierce Brosnan? Stellan Sarsgard? These guys suck ass. Their voices sound forced and completely ruined it for me. Meryl Streep did well in a few numbers, but not well enough to make up for the bad voices.

Acting:
I was surprised that such a stellar cast with such great jobs done in the past, especially by 007 Brosnan and Meryl Streep. The acting looks as if it was done as a Broadway Musical, which didn’t do that well. The directors treated this as if it were a live show, which worked out really badly on screen. Not a very satisfying job.

Directing:
All the faults in the movie were really apparent, and, regardless of the reputation of the music and the cast, a bad job was done. Casting could have been better, the dance numbers could have been better, there were few things in the movie that couldn’t be improved.

It was not a satisfying movie at all. It definitely had its good moments, enough to make it watchable. Don’t see this in theatres, it’s not worth that money. You want to cozy up at night with a trashy movie? This is the perfect movie for it.