Review of Mamma Mia! (2008) by Chads. — 20 Jul 2008

During the "Mamma Mia" number, Greek peasants crawl over the side of a building wall like extras in a Billy Idol video. And indeed, Donna(Meryl Streep) has been dancing with herself ever since Sam(Pierce Brosnan) broke her heart twenty years ago on the same Greek island she lives with her daughter Sophie(Amanda Seyfried).

Now, on the cusp of her daughter's white wedding, he's back, along with two other partners from her post-Sam sex bender in "Mamma Mia", the ABBA musical that couldn't find a place for "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and "Fernando".

The thin storyline is just an excuse to kill the time in between songs anyway, so the omission of these two standards from the Swedish supergroup's canon seems somewhat arbitrary...and cruel(I love "Knowing Me, Knowing You", especially the "ah-haa" just before the girls launch into "there is nothing we can do").

No need to despair though, there's still "Dancing Queen", the emotional locus of "Mamma Mia", as "Fernando" was for the ABBA-centric(and superior) "Muriel's Wedding".

Sung from the perspective of a middle-aged woman, "you can dance/you can jive/havin' the time of your life", Streep's winning rendition transforms this insanely catchy piece of bubble gum into an anthem for lost youth.

It's like watching Stevie Nicks perform "Landslide". And then there's Pierce Brosnan's duet with Streep on "SOS", in which James Bond has the audience searching their memory banks for another example of an equally laughable singing performance(think Rob Lowe's serenading of Snow White on an Academy Award telecast from yesteryear).

Since Seyfried has the strongest voice in a cast of mostly non-singers, it's a shame that she wasn't assigned to a meaty song like "Take a Chance of Me". Julie Walters' menopausal take on the formerly infectious song about love's first blush left me feeling depressed.

And why does the Geico caveman("Jazz hands. Anything with jazz hands.