Posted on 03/31/2012 11:28:26 PM PDT by Razzz42
The casting of actors not noted for their singing abilities led to some mixed reviews. Variety stated that "some stars, especially the bouncy and rejuvenated Streep, seem better suited for musical comedy than others, including Brosnan and Skarsgård."[21] Brosnan, especially, was savaged by many critics: his singing was compared to "a water buffalo" (New York Magazine),[22] "a donkey braying" (The Philadelphia Inquirer)[23] and "a wounded raccoon" (The Miami Herald),[24] and Matt Brunson of Creative Loafing Charlotte said he "looks physically pained choking out the lyrics, as if he's being subjected to a prostate exam just outside of the camera's eye."[25]
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My theory about this movie disaster is that everybody thought: “heck, Meryl’s doing it so it can’t be THAT bad...” It was. It is possibly one of the worst movies ever made.
The chorus of Greek peasants alone was worth the price of admission.
Not to mention that Brosnan's character talked the proper heiress into sailing off into the sunset while he got the lady, the island, and a pretty cushy life for himself.
Don’t take her to a production of Chess. Same Abba dudes, but morose. (As was some of Bjorn and Benny’s later pop music)
Without a doubt, this was a chic-flick. Streep had more or less a cameo role...no real acting involved. I dread having to sit through that again.
No accounting for taste.
I stumbled on to it on TV and watch, briefly, before running from the room screaming.
Good Grief. I would rather have prostate surgery through my nasal passages than watch the whole thing.
Not a good movie. Streep was dreadfully miscast, IMO.
It’s a good story and funny, but skip the movie and go see it live on stage, if possible.
Vegas had a good stage version of it running several years back.
Music is all by ABBA and it’s fun.
As an aside, I stumbled on “Memphis” (musical) on Netflix recently. It was a videotaped stage production. Great singing and dancing. Thoroughly enjoyable.
After seeing it live as a play 3 times with people who could act and most importantly sing, I found this move to be horrendous.
If I were any of the actors/singers in this movie I would be embarrassed to show my face in public but I have noticed recently embarrassment seems to have been eliminated from the DNA of Hollywierd types and politicians.
Always like Abba music, but to listen to Brosnan croak through the couple of songs is unbearable. Streep like-wise. Did think the Greek choir reference was funny. Had a homo message in it, too. Blah.
Saw it once, that was enough.
Colin Firth played a wimpy sissy boy who sang terribly, played an acoustic guitar and had the nickname Headbanger????
All in all an incredibly stupid movie but had some nice scenery.
It's a musical, not heavy drama - pure escapism.
Hard to believe as it may be, I didn’t know this movie was a musical, because I paid little attention to what was said about it. So a few months ago, Directv was offering a free week of some movie channel, and “Mamma Mia” came on. I watched a little, and then all of a sudden Meryl Streep started singing. No matter how good the story might be, when actors start breaking out into song, it turns ridiculous for me.
I enjoy the music of ABBA but that movie was BAD! I had to leave the room, it was so bad.
And I like musicals.
They could have used this movie at Gitmo instead of waterboarding. The problem would be that Amnesty International would have probably insist on Nuremberg trials for those responsible...
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