Watch: Mamma Mia! 2008 123movies, Full Movie Online – Set on a colorful Greek island, the plot serves as a background for a wealth of ABBA songs. A young woman about to be married discovers that any one of three men could be her father. She invites all three to the wedding without telling her mother, Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep), who was once the lead singer of Donna and the Dynamos. In the meantime, Donna has invited her back-up singers, Rosie Mulligan (Dame Julie Walters) and Tanya Wilkinson (Christine Baranski)..
Plot: An independent, single mother who owns a small hotel on a Greek island is about to marry off the spirited young daughter she’s raised alone. But, the daughter has secretly invited three of her mother’s ex-lovers in the hopes of finding her biological father.
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6.5/10 Votes: 247,138 | |
55% | RottenTomatoes | |
51/100 | MetaCritic | |
N/A Votes: 5666 Popularity: 30.966 | TMDB |
**With a good cast and an enviable and appealing soundtrack, the film promised to be excellent… but it turned out to be much more average than I imagined.**First of all, I think I need to make a note: I can’t say that I’m an ABBA fan, but the truth is that I have a great affection for the band and their songs, because they were songs that I remember hearing on TV when I was a kid. It is a childhood memory, which has a sentimental charge, and which cannot be evaluated in a completely neutral way (childhood memories never leave us neutral).
I have yet to say that I had high expectations for the film. I’m not just talking about the music and the various songs I remember listening to, but also the enormous quality of the cast selected for the project, and the active participation of elements of the former band in the production. It was something that promised to have great quality. Well, the film has its qualities, it’s undeniable, but the truth is that I noticed some laziness and sloppiness in the production, in several aspects.
The film’s biggest problem was the absence of a well-written script that could support the action and songs. In addition to the slew of summer movie clichés, the script copied an old Italian movie called _Buona Sera Mrs. Campbell_, whose action is based on the dubious parenting of the protagonist’s daughter, played by Gina Lollobrigida. I cannot say that we are in a situation of plagiarism because there are many films about children that do not know their parents, but the lack of originality is remarkable. Also, the film seems to almost make the apology of sexual promiscuity! In the midst of an uncomplicated, light, “hippie” environment, the film puts the main character’s mother in an embarrassing situation: she is the single mother of a daughter who grew up not knowing her father because there are three possible “candidates”, with whom she got involved almost simultaneously! And I’d rather not talk about that scene where a mature woman flirts with a guy much younger than her!
Jumping from Broadway to Hollywood, Phyllida Lloyd assured a sincere, but not excellent, effort at the direction. She was not able to demand more from her crew, she allowed a very poor conception of the characters and the choice of actors was not at all happy from the moment they had to sing. The best choices were Amanda Seyfried and Meryl Streep, two solid, charismatic, expressive actresses with an excellent voice. The scenes in which the two are protagonists, speaking or singing, are among the best in the film, which was an excellent bet that Seyfried made in her career. Stellan Skarsgard did reasonably well, but I felt he had little to do, and so Colin Firth… in fact, this English actor, whose voice is not particularly pleasant, already seemed to me to be a dubious choice for a musical. However, he looked like an opera diva when compared to Pierce Brosnan or Julie Walters. The ex-Bond has great difficulty with the treble and sings almost in falsetto, and Walters can’t sing without starting to scream.
Technically, the film isn’t brilliant either. On the positive side, we have the elegant cinematography, with the sun, the sea and the scenic beauty of the Greek islands favoring the visuals (we have to agree that the filming locations were wonderfully used), as well as the well-conceived sets and costumes. But the film’s strong point is the soundtrack, of course, with an abundant list of ABBA songs, so famous that we can sing the entire movie. However, the insertion of each song in the film leaves a lot to be desired, something that, along with somewhat artificial choreography, leaves us with the feeling that the film is almost a gigantic music video clip, with the script being just an excuse for the songs to appear successively.
To Mamma Mia! then, a movie easily slipping in past Coyote Ugly as the second-worst film I’ve ever seen (behind The Rocky Horror Picture Show). My eyes. I can’t unsee it.From what I could gather (and that’s not because the plot is difficult – Christ, no – or because I wasn’t really paying attention, it’s because the film seemed to be not sinking in, not digesting in my brain. I think my brain was trying to reject it, like a foreign object) – an airy-fairy middle-aged bohemian tart (Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady) prances and dances around her primary-coloured villa on an unspecified Greek (I think) island. Her equally airy-fairy “Barbie Princess” daughter (Amanda Seyfried, Les Misérables) prances and dances around with her. That seems to be what they do. I mean, for a living, like. They’re not on holiday. This is the summation of their lives. Idyllic and unrealistic prancery and dancery, around a villa apparently coloured in by over-enthusiastic first-graders. They have two friends each who escort them everywhere – even to the sh!tter perhaps, I dunno – who exist exclusively to orbit like satellites around this main pair. In fact, everybody in this movie exist purely to serve the life stories of Streep and Seyfried. It’s that sort of film, where everybody on-screen is wondering, “Oh! Will Streep eat a tangerine next? Or a satsuma? Will Seyfried brush her hair with a soft brush, or a slightly-softer-than-that brush? Oh, the agony!” Anyway, the daughter’s getting wed – the next day, I think – to some impossibly perfect young lad (to suit her impossibly perfect everything else), but, oh noes! She never knew who her dad was, because her mum was a dirty old stropper back in the eighties, and they’ve both been too busy prancing and dancing for two straight decades to even have brought it up, ever! So, who will give her away tomorrow? Oh noes!
Well she prances and dances her way to her mum’s secret diary (with her two conjoined mates, obvs) and, equally “obvs”, it’s all in there. Ta-daa! Except, there are three possible “daddies” and of course, they are Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), Pierce Brosnan (Goldeneye) and Stellan Skarsgård (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest). So she invites all three to the wedding under the pretense of being her own mum and of course all three drop whatever they’ve been doing for twenty years and turbo their way, immediately, to this island, all arriving together, on the same boat, which also belongs to one of them. Hurrah. From there, much “hilarity” ensues as the airy-fairy daughter tries to suss which one’s her dad while her airy-fairy tart mother spends the rest of the film – with HER conjoined mates, obvs – wondering whether to let Brosnan “tap dat ass” one more time.
**********
SPOILER ALERT (LIKE ANYONE GIVES A DRY, UNYIELDING BUMPLOP): They don’t find out who the daddy is: the three pinhead blokes all agree that they now already love this silly airy-fairy daughter so much that they agree to be one-thirds daddy each. Then, out of the clear ****ing sky, the airy-fairy daughter tells her groom at the altar that the wedding’s off, and they should just prance and dance around the world instead. Fantastic! And not to waste a wedding full of perfect ****ing strangers anyway, but Brosnan decides to marry Streep while they’re there. Well of course. And Skarsgård hooks up with Julie “Isn’t she dead yet?” Walters – one of Streep’s conjoined mates – and Firth, who as it happens was a left-footer all along who was just experimenting with Streep back in the day, cops off with a waiter in traditional Greek island fashion. Hurrah for everything! Let’s have another ABBA song, eh?
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Oh, the ABBA songs. I mean, there are musicals. Then, there are musical musicals. And then, way past any of that, there is Mamma Mia!. A quick Wiki-up shows me that, excluding reprises and a deleted scene, there are twenty songs performed in Mamma Mia!. So, say, four minutes per song, that’s eighty minutes. Wiki (again) tells me that the film is 109 minutes in length, so let’s knock off ten minutes-worth of credits, and you’re looking at eighty minutes of singing in a 99 minute film. That sounds about right. A 19-minute story – a p!ss-poor one, at that – stretched over an hour-and-a-half by the soothing tunes of Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Anni-Frid. Looking at those numbers I’m now somewhat impressed that whilst watching this pile of pooey bum-leavings I didn’t stand up, lose the plot, smash my house to rubble and wander off to live in the woods as a sasquatch. It was ceaseless. An ABBA song, three lines of dialogue (if you were lucky, which wasn’t often), another ABBA song. Over and over. And… well, the songs were all sung in-camera by the actors. And whilst I wouldn’t call any of them good singers, they could all at least hold a note (only just in Streep’s case, but she managed to stumble over that line).
All except Pierce Brosnan.
Oh, Pierce. Pierce! Why didn’t someone tell him? Did no one care enough? Is he THAT unlikeable? Why couldn’t he hear it himself? I don’t want to come across as either xenophobic or stereotypical when I suggest that he sounded like a drunken Irishman preparing to fight, but that IS what he sounded like. And who knows, maybe that’s what was really happening with him at that time. He IS an Irishman, perhaps he needed to get good and liquored up before the singing – I know I would – and perhaps he was wondering whether or not to attack the first person on the set who dared laugh. Sounds perfectly plausible.
Anyway, the whole thing’s a travesty, top-to-toe. Most closely resembled one of those straight-to-video Barbie movies, beloved of six-year-old girls and nobody else on the entire planet. If you ever have an opportunity to see it, DO NOT take that opportunity. SPURN that opportunity. Spurn as though your very life depended on it. That’s all the advice I can give. Don’t do what I did, and watch Mamma Mia!. Only madness lies that way.
mamma mia!
I didn’t use to like this movie, but as I got older I started to love the movie more. It’s definitely a cheesy movie and far from perfect, but it’s a fun watch with catchy songs (duh, it’s ABBA). It’s not too long nor too short, so it’s a perfect movie to watch when you’re feeling down or to watch with friends on a movie-night.
Surprisingly good
Went to see Mamma Mia without particularly high expectations. Not being a big connoisseur (or even fan) of musicals, I didn’t really know what to expect. Though I adore ABBA, I never bothered to watch the stage production of Mamma Mia. But having a cinema membership, I didn’t have much to lose (no money, at least), so I went for it. And boy, am I glad that I did! I can safely say that I enjoyed every second of it. And I’m not even ashamed to admit it!Give Meryl Streep another Oscar and get it over with already. If she could get a nod for the Devil Wears Prada, she definitely deserves one for this. She really let her hair down on this one. Mrs. Streep can obviously not pass for a trained singer, but somehow, it just doesn’t seem to matter. It just really worked in the movie (unlike -say- Helena Bonham Carter’s singing in Sweeney Todd). When I heard Meryl’s rendition of “The winner takes it all” in advance, it lowered my expectations considerably, but in its context, it totally made sense.
Most of all though, this movie was just sheer fun. People were clapping, laughing…Rarely have I seen an audience as enthusiastic. The crowd especially responded well to Meryl and her two cronies (arguably the strongholds of the movie). Also, because I had never seen the musical before, I was amazed (and amused) at the inventive ways in which they managed to incorporate so many ABBA-songs. Equally brilliant was the way the extras (usually some Greek old women) were deployed throughout the movie…And then of course the setting (beautiful Greece) was mesmerizing…
Basically, Mamma Mia is a superb musical that doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you’re just a little bit crazy and want to have a good laugh, if you love ABBA, want to see Meryl Streep like you’ve never seen her before or if you simply have a secret crush on Colin Firth and/or Pierce Brosnan (his singing was nothing short of hilarious), you will LOVE this movie. Best summer flick so far. Warmly recommended.
Original Language en
Runtime 1 hr 48 min (108 min)
Budget 52000000
Revenue 609841637
Status Released
Rated PG-13
Genre Comedy, Musical, Romance
Director Phyllida Lloyd
Writer Catherine Johnson
Actors Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Amanda Seyfried
Country United States, United Kingdom, Germany
Awards Nominated for 3 BAFTA 15 wins & 25 nominations total
Production Company N/A
Website N/A
Sound Mix SDDS, Dolby Digital, DTS, DTS (DTS: X)
Aspect Ratio 2.39 : 1
Camera Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL, Panavision C- and E-Series Lenses
Laboratory Technicolor Digital Intermediates (digital intermediate)
Film Length 2,965 m (Sweden), 2,976 m (Germany), 3,007 m (Portugal, 35 mm)
Negative Format 35 mm (Kodak Vision2 50D 5201, Vision2 250D 5205, Vision2 200T 5217, Vision2 500T 5218)
Cinematographic Process Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format), Panavision (anamorphic) (source format)
Printed Film Format 35 mm (Kodak Vision 2383), D-Cinema