Sue's Reviews: Mamma Mia

I just got home from seeing Mamma Mia and I must say, it was much, much worse than expected. Since I expected it to be great, I have to say that I am totally and completely disappointed.

It has been so long since a movie has come out that I actually wanted to see. And this summer, there are quite a few out that I'm suddenly excited to see--one of which was Mamma Mia.

We got home and Lucas asked for a rundown of what was wrong with it. In a nutshell:

* The singing (Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan should never, ever open their mouths again)
* The acting (Colin Firth looked distinctly uncomfortable in his role at the end and at other times you could clearly see him thinking, "What am I doing? I'm one of the premiere actors in Britain!")
* The dancing
* The choreography
* The sets (apart from the fact that it was built into a hill, I can't honestly tell you what the place looked like, and at one point I leaned over and said, "I thought they were in Sweden?" to which Judy replied, "No, I think they're in Greece." Tell you anything?)
* The lighting
* The cinematography (during a scene in which some people are looking at old photos, the photos get cut off and are shown only for seconds once they are framed properly)
* The lip synching (several times, everyone was basically like "Screw the lip synching, let's just dance!" and let the music do the talking)
* It was quite raunchy, and not in a good way

The only thing that saved it was the audience. Two gay men in front of us were having the absolute time of our lives. After a particularly supposed-to-be-poignant seen where Meryl is singing "The Winner Takes It All" to Pierce, some people behind me actually started crying, and I just totally lost it. I busted out laughing and then tried to stifle my laughter and wound up laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my cheeks. So, I guess I can say it moved me to tears too.

There was a reviewer who said something about it being like a train wreck--gruesome and horrifying and you know you shouldn't be watching, but you can't tear yourself away. I'll liken our experience to that.

It was a round stinker. I am hoping and praying that The Dark Knight, The X Files, Swing Vote and Get Smart are better. Oh and I saw the preview for the new Ricky Gervais movie, which I don't know what exactly the title is, but it's about a dentist, and I am really looking forward to seeing that one. Nothing can be worse than this one, seriously.