Mamma Mia! (2008)

Not in a million years did I ever think I would write about this movie on my blog! In fact, I have a couple of movies I have been desperately wanting to share my opinions of and write about on here over the past two weeks but just haven't got around to it, what with two of my children's birthdays and our 5th anniversary in the last week. And it is down to our 5th anniversary that I am about to write about Mamma Mia as it was one of the presents I had bought for Caroline.

I was very lucky this year, as when I was just a lad, me and my old mate, Darthwoodbine (Chris, to his family) would go the cinema up to 40 times a year but as the years have rolled on and I work, and have a family to look after, I don't go to visit the big screen a fraction as often, last year, I only went to the cinema twice, yup, you heard that right, two times, and I call myself a movie fan! Tut tut.

Well this year I have been grateful to have had the opportunities to go and see all the movies I wanted to see, the Dark Knight, the Incredible Hulk, The Crystal Skull, Rambo etc etc, I have got around to seeing them all on the big screen, the way they were intended to be seen (although I now can watch them on my wall mounted 50 inch via Blu Ray at home, the spectacle and event factor just isn't quite the same). All the time revelling in my joy of being exported into another world thanks to some of Hollywood's finest movie makers, and of course, my darling wife Caroline, of whom has accompanied with me on most of this journeys. Of whom, wanted to see Mamma Mia very much, but sadly didn't get around to doing so due to sacrificing it to see what I wanted to see. Yeah I feel guilty, I would quite happily of endured it for her but we went and saw Hell Boy: The Golden Army instead as we were both fans of the first Hell Boy movie and of course, the cinematic genius that is Guillermo Del Toro. So I was dead cert to buy it for her as soon as it was available and to be a true gentleman, I watched it with her the night we got it.

Although The Dark Knight is this years biggest hit globally, and also peaking as the 4th biggest grossing movie of all time almost reaching the $1 Billion mark, Mamma Mia was the biggest grossing movie in this country. It didn't too badly world wide either, knocking up well over $600 million. And it isn't really a surprise. I was quite up for watching it, I had no expectation as it clearly wasn't my cup of tea, just below horror, Musicals are my least favourite movie genre, but was quite open about it, well I had to be or I would have sat for 100 minutes pulling my hair and banging my head against the wall, but get this sports fans, it isn't that bad!

At first, I was cringing due to the pungent smell of cheese that the movie was omitting but the movie, so convincingly effortlessly, was very light heartedly comedic and toe tappingly fun. You can't hardly disagree that like them or not Abba have one of the most consistently, longest running popularity of all time, all ages, every party or wedding, everyone knows their music and will get up to dance. I have never bought an Abba CD nor would voluntarily listen to an Abba album but was familiar with 90% of the songs sung in the movie and with the sporadic dance numbers and absolutely beautiful locations, the movie is set on a gorgeous Greek Island, although all the scenes shot at the top of Villa Donna were filmed on a sound stage, tropical trees, Brilliant blue sky and beautiful exotic blue sea is the order of the day and with young bouncy dancers in their hoards filling the screen the whole jolly uplifting experience sure as hell starts to rub off on you. The actors clearly have a lot of fun too, Meryl Streep as Donna, is as brilliant and dedicated as usual with fine supporting performances from her "side kicks", Christine Baranski as Tanya and Julie Walters as Rosie, her best friends and former group members who are attending the wedding of Donna's daughter Sophie, played sweetly by the girl next door beautiful Amanda Seyfried. Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard play the three former love interests of Donna of whom one of them, according to Donna's old diary that Sophie has found, is her father....

The story is clearly and unashamedly a thin excuse to put together an extensive string of musical numbers sang by pretty much all of the major leads throughout the movie. Director Phyllida Lloyd is hailed as a first time director, although she is an accomplished theatre director and her credits include the stage version of Mamma Mia itself. She does an absolutely perfect job bringing it from the stage to the bring screen, and watching it on Blu Ray, I was blown away at how crisp and beautiful the image was, clearly one of the best looking Blu Rays on the market, if someone wanted to see how much better Blu Ray was than DVD, I would arguably chuck this on to get their visual juices flowing! It is so vibrant and sharp, it looked as though you could step into the screen and the join the cast in Greece!

So, despite being one of my least favourite genres and quite simply, a chick flick, you can't knock it for doing exactly what it does on the tin. Caroline was blown away by it and has ranked it in her top 5 movies of all time, and it is obvious why, it will stand the test of time, joining Dirty dancing and Pretty woman, as the leading chick flicks for many generations to come.

Mamma Mia "Cheesy, simple, but extremely effective, precisely conceived to look genuinely effortless, it achieves what it goes out to do in transferring one of the most successful theatre shows in recent years into a rollicking blockbuster musical. Women will love it, and guys, secretly, you won't hate it either." ***