Momma, My Eyes!

Filed Under Blockbusters, Movies, Theatre

They made a movie about a friggin’ ABBA song?! Is this the very best Hollywood can do? And what the stink is James Bond doing in this mess?

Evidently, this film is based on a stage musical of the same name. When writing a musical now, you don’t even need to write original music, rather a bunch of loosely-connected scenes you can shoehorn insipid ABBA songs into. Then, some producer will come along and make your uninspired monstrosity of a stage show into an equally uninspired monstrosity of a movie.

This horrorshow is opening the same day as “The Dark Knight” in a sneaky little bit of counter-programming on the part of Universal Pictures. Now you might say that the new Batman movie is just another cynical product of franchising, not unlike “Mamma Mia.” I would have to disagree. Early reviews I’m reading of “The Dark Knight” are calling it a “masterpiece” that elevates the comic book genre in the same way that “Godfather II” elevated gangster pictures and “Empire Strikes Back” elevated sci-fi. In short, it takes the source material to another level. I’m not seeing any indication that “Mamma Mia” is such a game-changer.

Some people might say that I’m being unfair, that “Mamma Mia” is just harmless entertainment. Those people are weenises. “Mamma Mia” is piffle and doesn’t even want to be original. It’s an adaptation of an adaptation. It’s not nearly as ill-conceived as that useless “Producers” movie that came out a couple years ago — a film that’s based on a stage musical that’s based on another film. But that still doesn’t justify its existence.

Studios are run by yellow-bellied bean counters, too timid to greenlight anything new or different. They like brand names, things that are familiar to the mainstream audience. Even non-adaptations stink of sameness, like tomorrow’s “Hancock.” What’s key to successfully cashing in on a brand name and maintaining some modicum of artistic integrity is bringing something fresh to the proceedings, an original approach. Now if Pierce Brosnan were blowing away criminal masterminds with a Walther PPK, bedding that bug-eyed blonde girl on all the “Mamma Mia” posters, and singing “Dancing Queen,” that’d be something different. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any of that business in the trailers. So I’m absolutely not going to take a chance on “Mia.”

-Brad Lohan

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