Mamma Mia!

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Movie Details

• Genre: Comedy, Musical, Romance
• Release Date: 2008-07-18 Nationwide
• Running Time: 108 min.
• Director: Phyllida Lloyd
• Cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters, Dominic Cooper, Amanda Seyfried, Christine Baranski
• Producer: Judy Craymer, Gary Goetzman
• Writer: Catherine Johnson
• Distributor: Universal Pictures
• Official Site: Mamma Mia! Official Site

Sure, it's nice that the actors sing their own numbers—Meryl Streep has a fab set of pipes, and the fact that Pierce Brosnan sings like a bullfrog in heat is used to adorable effect. But without the originals' multiply dubbed wall of sound, these ABBA tunes only get their due in the all-too-rare big production numbers, when Mamma Mia! finally rocks as a tirelessly nostalgic pub crawl through a narrow street of 1970s pop history. Otherwise, it's little more than droopy ditties draped around a threadbare plot about the daughter (Amanda Seyfried) of a single mom (Streep) who secretly invites three men in a boat (Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard)—each of whom might be her father—to her Greek island wedding. For all its half-hearted stabs at catering to the transatlantic youth market, Mamma Mia! is a (Shirley) valentine to fiftysomething, we're-not-done-yet broads, three of whom—director Phyllida Lloyd, screenwriter Catherine Johnson, and co-producer Judy Craymer—successfully courted that under-served demo in the hit stage version, but haven't a clue how to make a movie. A mugging Streep is eclipsed by Christine Baranski, stealing the show in a coyly filthy dance number with a corps of pectorally gifted young blades. In moments like these, Mamma Mia! takes enchanting ownership of what it is: a stage musical that made a big ol' heap of money, shoved onto the big screen to make a whole lot more.