That's A Spicy Meatball

So there I am, ticket in hand, all set to see The Dark Knight and God decides to give me the old metaphorical crane kick to the face by causing the projector to fail. This caused me to do something I never, ever thought I would do. Instead of just getting my money back and going home, I went ahead and saw Mamma Mia.

I never thought I'd see it because it's the film version of a famous stage musical but all the songs are from ABBA's song book. It's not that I'm not an ABBA fan...no wait, it's entirely that I'm not an ABBA fan. Until last night, I could have sworn that ABBA had only recorded three songs in their decades long career. Let's see, there's Dancing Queen, Take A Chance On Me and, um...there's Dancing Queen, I know that. Oh, the title track itself, Mamma Mia, that's an ABBA song right? Or was it just made up for the musical? My head hurts now.

Oh well, I suppose I should discuss the plot although it seems to only exist so the actors will have stuff to do in between singing about seeing that girl, watching that scene and digging that dancing queen. Amanda Seyfried plays Sophie, a 20 year old girl who, while planning her upcoming wedding, finds her mother's old diary and makes the mistake of reading it. It turns out her mother, Donna (Meryl Streep) used to be a total slut. The reason that Sophie never knew who her father was is that her loose mother never knew who the father was either. According to the diary, she had sex with three different guys within a few weeks of each other. At least, those were the three she had time to write about. There was Sam (Pierce Brosnan), the love of her life who broke her heart, Bill (Stellan Skarsgård), the guy she threw herself at to get over Sam and Harry (Colin Firth), a guy she did it with because...um...okay, she's pretty much out of excuses at this point. Sophie really wants to have her father at her wedding so she sends invitations to all three to come to the Greek island where her mother runs an inn.

Sophie hatches a genius plan to hide the three from her mother in the inn's old goathouse until she can figure out which one is her father. This genius plan literally falls apart in about five minutes when Donna, apparently no longer a complete whore, spots her old dalliances wandering around her property and properly wonders what the hell they're doing there.

You can usually spot when the characters are about to sing another ABBA song because they suddenly start speaking in superfluous, out-of-character dialogue. For instance, Donna and her two oldest friends were sitting around discussing the mixed and wistful feelings that most mothers have when their daughters are about to marry when suddenly one of the women says something along the lines of, "Gosh Donna, you should loosen up and have more fun. Remember when you were the queen of the dance floor?" and then BAM they're all singing Dancing Queen. That happens pretty much before every musical number so you non-ABBA fans out there who also couldn't get into The Dark Knight know when to stick your fingers in your ears. I will say that some of the musical numbers were quite well done like Meryl Streep's rendition of Mamma Mia and then you get Lay All Your Love On Me, which starts off well enough as a love duet between Sophie and her fiance, Sky (Dominic Cooper) and ends with the guys from her Sky's bachelor party literally hopping around in swimsuits and flippers. If Sky's friends said to him, "Dude, we promise, this will be the gayest bachelor party you have ever seen," then this was definitely a promise fulfilled.

We did learn a few things from Mamma Mia:

1. You don't necessarily need to have a decent singing voice to be cast in a major role in a big movie musical (I'm looking at you, Pierce Brosnan).
2. A girl can be born and raised on a Greek island and still speak English with a middle American accent.
3. On the same note, no one in Greece actually speaks Greek.
4. Three grown men will suddenly stop whatever the hell they're doing to go see some chick they banged 20 years earlier and haven't heard from since simply because they get an invitation in the mail. Also, they will not call to say they're coming or try to confirm the invitation in any way.

So, that's about it. It all boils down to this: if you're not an ABBA fan, your chances of liking this movie are miserable. If you are an ABBA fan, you'll probably like it so much that you lose control of your bowels so it's best to wear one of those Depends Undergarments. If you're someone who only knows a few ABBA songs, like me, then you'll only see it if forced and then you'll go to your movie review site and write a bitter, sarcastic review. Okay, that's all of humanity broken down into three neat categories. Hope you found this helpful.

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