I love me some Christine Baranski and see just about everything she does. (Yep, even the Grinch.)
At the same time, the reviews "Mamma Mia" had gotten, combined with the fact that, well, it's an Abba musical, has pretty much everyone I know not wanting to see it.
TheCSO still owes me big because I sat through "A Scanner Darkly," so I COULD cash in that chip. But do I want to?
Has anybody seen it? Is it that bad? How much screen time does Christine Baranski get?
Thanks,
CC
5 comments:
This is on the "must do" list with my daughters (but due to camping/travel, we won't be able to do it together until next weekend). For me the draw is and always will be Colin Firth. Yum. Let me know if it is worth a full price ticket for four. Otherwise, we'll go to the matinee.
I saw "Mamma Mia" the musical in Vegas several years ago, and I thought it was cute and fun. I'm not going to see the movie, but if you haven't seen the musical, you should see the movie. Go for the Christine Baranski, stay for the sing-along.
YMMV, but I saw it with my husband at an advance screening, and we both thought it was awful. And we both enjoy a really wide range of films, including musicals. But, at the same time, a lot of the people around us seemed to be enjoying it, so who knows how you will feel?
But ugh. The whole film was suffused with ear-splitting squealing (that's literally all there was for the first fifteen minutes flat), and the film seemed to be saying nothing so much as "If we squeal and giggle enough, to show that we're having a great time, you MUST be having a great time too!!"
Of course, if you're a huge ABBA fan, you might just get as giddy as the women on the screen and have the time of your life. To me, it felt like the story was driven by which songs the writers wanted to wedge in, very artificial feeling. "Take a Chance on Me," which didn't show up until the end, was the biggest offender. Suddenly there's a whole new plot element that was hardly even hinted at before, and seemed to exist solely so they could figure out how to get that song into the narrative.
I don't have a problem with giddy, exuberant musicals - I loved Hairspray. For what it's worth. :)
It was sort of like a 2-hour music video for ABBA, really. If you think of it that way and don't hold it to any sort of standards of quality for actual movies maybe it's better. I don't know.
Christine Baranski did have one song of her own that was cute. It didn't hurt me as much as the rest of it all. And there's plenty of eye candy.
I can totally see how this would be enjoyable on stage. But I don't think it made a successful transition to screen. I'm really glad I didn't actually have to put any money into this.
It got great reviews in Boston and New York -- where are the bad ones coming in from?
I wasn't sure about this ... I'm not a big Abba (ABBA?) fan - okay, I'm NO fan of Abba at all, although their music was fine for me in Muriel's Wedding. But ... one of my good friends went to see it on Friday and she HATED it. She said Pierce Brosnan *cannot* sing, Meryl Streep was very meh, and people were breaking out into song every five minutes. She thought it was shrill.
If I see this, I'll have to wait till video so that I can escape/turn it off if it gets on my nerves. I like musicals more than my friend, but there is a limit ....
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