Everyone loves a good musical. You’ll be pretty hard pushed to find a person in the world who doesn’t have one toe-tapping sequence kept into their hearts. The enjoyment of being submerged into a choreographed world of highly trained singers all pouring their emotion out through the medium of song is unparalleled. With movie musicals such as Moulin Rouge! and Chicago hitting the spot every time, it’s a wonder why people don’t burst into song whenever they do their shopping.
This being said, I don’t think anyone, apart from the Grecian sun, wants to be in Mamma Mia! In fact, if you wanted to be in Mamma Mia! you can just put on an Abba CD.
Though it smashed box offices and this plucky young journalist went to see it a bunch of times. But if you sit back and think about it, the cracks begin to show like Donna’s falling apart hotel. The plot is so ridiculous and they try to sandwich in songs around it that don’t quite work. The hotel entertainment singer background is just a heinous reason to shove Meryl Streep in seventies gear and relate to the Abba discography. And unfortunately, though the songs are classics, they are given to the likes of Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth who look so uncomfortable screeching through the songs that you know, they know and everyone knows they can’t sing.
Mamma Mia! suffers from supplying the movie with a contrived story and star quality rather than actual quality. But all of your troubles with the film melt away because it revels in its suntanned insanity. The minute the tunes start warbling out of the vocals, you’ll be awash with sequined memories, big flared moments and a collection of impossibly catchy songs no matter how ludicrously squeezed into the story they are. It hits the right spot because of the smaltzy heart at the centre trying to make you delirious on happiness and Abba – Abbainess. You can spend most of the time faulting it but it’s periless to fight, just sit back and enjoy it’s every cringe worthy moment because right around the corner, there is a Dancing Queen and Super Trooper, ready to make you happy. And also, no one actually gives a shit about what they sound like, they are just having fun. It takes the edge off Mamma Mia! a lot.
Finallay, there is an amazing singing extra, her face is hilarious and she is in nearly every musical number. The Greek workers are truly the stars of the show.