It’s mildly ironic that I will again be writing about a musical. Today I saw Mamma Mia! at Square One with Sarah and my sister Andrea. I have to say I was disappointed. It wasn’t bad, but I remember seeing the trailer and having high hopes. I think it’s always risky when you turn a stage show into a movie. It’s a different kind of story telling and a different style of acting. Although I have not seen the stage show, it seemed that not a sufficient number of changes were made to make this a good movie.

First, many of the actors were still doing stage acting on film, which is absolutely horrid to watch. Second, the songs didn’t flow into the story and seemed really musical like. Not that they shouldn’t feel like a musical, but the transition in and out of song should have blended better making it feel natural and not forced. Speaking of not blending well, every time the ensemble cast was involved it seemed out of place and awkward. Another awkward thing about the movie was that the action always seemed to be moving. Again, this doesn’t seem like a bad thing, to avoid talking heads, but the characters always seemed to be going somewhere and were never in one place at a time. This gave the audience a real hard time to get settled with the suroundings. Every other shot was someone running around on this tiny island.

Just like We Will Rock You where the choice of songs is limited to those from one artist, this time ABBA, the story was again weak. The only character with depth was Donna played by Meryl Streep, the single mother of the bride to be. but even her carefree character didn’t give much for you to chew on. The individual performances were exceptional. Although Streep seemed to take too many cues from Celine Dion when it came to putting emotion into her singing and arm movements. Peirce Brosnan, although not a spectatular singer had a soild performer as one of Sophia’s three possible fathers.

Many of these issues, I’m not sure if it is a problem with the musical or the movie, but I can definately see the potential as a stage show. I just don’t think the transition into a film version was accomplished sucessfuly.