Fun stage show becomes a movie mess

The film version of the jukebox theater musical "Mamma Mia!" is a mess.

It plays a little as if someone had left a radio playing in the background while a movie is steadfastly trying to play itself out in the foreground. The ABBA songs are there (and, yes, they are irresistible, in a shallow sort of way), but they have little or nothing to do with the story, and they are persistently dogged by hordes of scantily clad island folk who wave their hands and jump to suggest they are infected with an aggressive case of joy.

You'd be better off to buy the album. Not the soundtrack album, but a compilation of ABBA's greatest hits.

The film arrives in theaters today, and its producers point out that the stage musical is taking in $8 million a week and that people are paying more than $100 for a ticket. More than 30 million people have seen the stage version, a number of them in downtown Norfolk.

Fans expecting the movie to become a smash hit may be disillusioned by what they see onscreen. "Mamma Mia!" is more likely to go the route of "Phantom of the Opera," "Rent," "A Chorus Line" and "The Producers," all of which were huge Broadway hits but movie flops.

Filmed on a Greek island, "Mamma Mia!" had the potential to improve upon the strained nature of the stage play. We were ready to let the sun shine in, but we get only banal dialogue and the static style of a photographed stage play.

The ultra-skimpy plot is repeated, in detail, every second or so, just to remind us that, after all, there is a plot. It involves a spoiled brat who, selfishly and with no regard for the feelings of the adults, secretly sends off wedding invitations to her mother's three former flames, one of whom may be her father.

It remains curious that "Mamma Mia!" has avoided a lawsuit from the creators and writers of a 1968 movie called "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell," which has the same plot and was actually funny. That starred Gina Lollobrigida as the mother with Phil Silvers, Telly Savalas and Peter Lawford as candidates for the father. Ironically, "Mrs. Campbell" was made into a Broadway musical in 1979 with music by Alan Jay Lerner, the creator of "Gigi" and "My Fair Lady." Ler-ner, to his credit, is no ABBA, but the show, called "Carmelina," was a flop.

It is embarrassing to see Meryl Streep, as the mother, debase herself with so many fake laughs to convince us she is having a jolly time. She runs along island paths, throws her hair about and even resorts to some awesome trampoline jumps that show she's a trouper. This effort proves that she'll try anything more than that she can do anything.

Taking the bad-singing prize is poor Pierce Brosnan. The former James Bond manfully takes on "SOS" and "I Do, I Do," but this is not the musical for a nonsinging actor.

The best musical performer is the young Amanda Seyfried as the petulant daughter. She handles, admirably, "I Have a Dream."

It was a mistake to allow the director of the stage show, Phyllida Lloyd, to direct the movie. She knows nothing about photographing or editing a movie, but the stage creators refused to release the film rights if they didn't make it themselves.

The director seems not to know what a solo is. Time after time, mass ensemble scenes break out when an intimate moment would have scored. Take, for example, a plaintive song like "Our Last Summer." It starts out as a solo for Colin Firth but abruptly switches to a mad dash by everyone on the island. This treatment gives new meaning to the concept of a Greek chorus.

Each song is accompanied by a desperate effort to shoehorn it into the plot. The most inappropriate choice may be having the daughter sing "Honey, Honey" when she's thinking about bringing in her three fathers.

The last scene, which is fun, has the cast forget the movie and do a simulated disco scene - a suggestion that the better treatment might have been just to do the music of the Swedish pop group without plot efforts.

Even after all this synthetic desperation, there is the music. It makes up for a great deal - but not enough.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com.