It's NOT The Sound of Music, That's for Sure!

Rating: 7/10 (10 February 2009)

Call me silly, but The Sound of Music is still my favorite musical and the film by which I judge all musicals and Mama Mia sure comes up short. All I kept thinking during the movie was why Julie Andrews wasn't the female lead? Meryl Streep? I LOVE Meryl Streep, but not in Mama Mia! She is the miscast of the year in this role and she CANNOT sing! Nor can Pierce Bronsan or anyone else for that matter except the two young leads who are both knock-outs - both to look at and to listen to. Colin Firth, my very favorite male lead, was the only singer who moved me to tears and he can't sing either. I kept thinking why have they made a musical without singers? What am I missing? But there's so much about this film that annoyed me. First of all, the story is the least romantic I have ever come across. The idea that a young woman on the day of her wedding wants the three men her mother hooked up with and one of whom may be her father is not only silly, it's just plain neurotic, hardly the basis for a romantic story. Okay, so the location shooting was fabulous, but the actors paled in comparison, all of them looking terrible except for the two young leads who looked fantastic! Merly Streep especially looked positively gruesome. All I kept thinking was that the director must HATE Meryl Streep to have her photographed so poorly. But the men didn't look any better especially Pierce Bronsan. The choreography was incredible, no doubt about it, but there were way too many songs and entirely too much motion - everyone on Earth got into the act every time there was a song to be sung - people coming from every direction so that it looked like the entire world was dancing, which might not be such a bad idea, but NOT in a movie, especially when you're trying to follow what little there is of the story.