Movies like this give Hollywood a bad name!

Rating: 2/10 (4 April 2013)

If you see this movie you are either desperate to get out of the house, or you're a fool. (if I had known what I do now, I would never have gone)
Let me be frank: so many movies are just desperate attempts to catch the public's attention, and if they can accomplish that, actually having a decent movie is completely secondary. Independence Day suckered in tens of millions of people with a flashy trailer. Of course, the trailer was the best part of the movie.
What's wrong with "Mama"? It's such a tired re-tread of so many other movies, and one that just doesn't ring true as an "authentic" story, one you could actually believe. It's so much like "The Grudge" or "The Eye". The (over)-use of moths to represent evil was done just last year in the abominable movie, "The Possession" (to the disgrace of Sam Raime).
Another problem: we know very quickly what is happening so there is little real suspense, except for who will live and who will die. But since we can't buy into the story anyway, it doesn't matter very much.
Too many movies act like if they add enough feathers, they can turn a sickly duck into a swan. In "Mama" the only way to keep our interest is to use CGI... to death. Let's be honest: we know that CGI is CGI. It's not novel. It's not clever. It's desperation. It's fine when you want to show an army of 10,000. Then it can actually work well. But not in something like this where we know we are seeing lame computer animation. Enough already! Stop insulting the viewer's intelligence and sophistication. If this were 1960 you could get away with it. Not now.
The central problems are redundancy and imitation. We know "mama" is this bad, evil spirit. We know she will strike. But since "mama" is a ridiculous CGI projection, we yawn. Imitation is the biggest culprit here. How many movies have we seen where a wrong was committed in the past and now the only way for the spirit to rest is for that wrong to be righted?
This movie fails on so many levels. It's just so derivative or dozens of other movies that there is no point in watching.
I gave this 2 stars. Looking back, I gave "The Possession" 3. Probably should switch those ratings. Of the two, "The Possession" was even lamer.