MAMMA MIA! THE MOVIE - Blu-ray review

I'm not the biggest fan of ABBA and I've never been seen dancing around in flashy clothing to the beat of "Dancing Queen." There is no tiara or high heeled boots in my closet. There are a few songs from the Swedish disco group that I enjoy, but I'm not going to say that there was anything of interest in me journeying out to see the film "Mamma Mia! The Movie" upon its release in July. The film garnered mixed reviews and some simply loved the film, while others felt it was absolutely horrendous. Regardless of what critics had to say, "Mamma Mia!" went on to gross roughly $425 million internationally and almost $150 domestically. Either the critics that lambasted the film were woefully wrong, or the number of fans of ABBA and the 1999 musical were grossly underestimated. With the film being a box office smash, Universal has provided a high end Blu-ray release of the film.

With the Blu-ray release coming in just a few days, my environment is a little different than it was when "Mamma Mia!" was released. No, I have not gone out and bought myself some knee high leather boots and iridescent bell bottomed pants. I have not eschewed my beloved Pearl Jam for the Seventies pop group. I've simply been lucky enough to find myself a wonderful young lady to fill much of my time and unfortunately for me, she absolutely loved the film and saw it in theaters. Knowing I had the film on Blu-ray, the proclamation was made by her that "If you don't laugh while watching this movie, something must be wrong with you." That is a bold statement and it was at that point I realized I'd be sitting down with her to watch this cinematic offering of the ABBA musical and see if the film held up to her high appraisal or if something would happen to me if I didn't laugh at least once.

The story takes place on the Greek island of Skopelos where former singer Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep) now runs a rundown hotel on the island with her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfriend). Sophie is to be married to her fiancé Sky (Dominic Cooper) and has decided what she wants mostly at her wedding is for her father to give her away. Unfortunately, Donna was quite promiscuous at the time of Sophie's conception and Donna's diary tells of three men who she had "dot dot dot" with (watch the movie to understand) and each of these men could be Sophie's father. Sophie has sent out letters of invitation to each of the men after reading the diary and doing some research to track down their whereabouts and have each arrive as Sophie believes she'll recognize her father the moment she sees the three men.

Donna knows nothing of Sophie's plans and does not know that the three former lovers will soon be arriving on her island. The first is American Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), a businessman who had captured Donna's heart, but left her to become married to another woman. Donna had loved Sam and felt he was the one and was heartbroken when they broke up. She then fell into the arms of two other men. One is Harry Bright (Colin Firth) is a British banker who shared a quick romance with Donna before switching teams and finding a love for men. The other is the adventurous Swede Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgard) who enjoys boating and living a free and exciting life. The three men had never previously met, but found themselves together on Bill's boat on their way to a reunion with Donna.

When the men arrive, Sophie discovers that she cannot be sure of which man is truly her father and she quickly moves them into secret quarters in a storage room at the hotel. The three are confused at first, but quickly realize that Donna did not invite them and Sophie fills them in on the fact that it was her that invited them. Sam remembers the last time he talked to Donna and the less than amicable words shared and Sam, Harry and Bill ponder whether or not they should stay or return to Bill's boat. Donna soon discovers the three men and drops (literally) in on them, where she is angered and tells them to leave. Donna's two former background singers Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters) are also in attendance for Sophie's wedding and attempts to talk Donna out of wanting the three men to leave.

The film continues as Sophie tries to uncover which of the men is her father by spending time with each of them and Donna grapples with her returning feelings of love after years of celibacy after each of the three men had broken her heart. There is a lot of singing and dancing, but it slowly becomes clear that Sam is still very much in love with Donna and she still loves the American that went and married another woman so many years before. Donna, Tanya and Rosie put on a little reunion show for Sophie and her friends and the climax of the film culminates in the discovery of who may or may not be the father of young Sophie and each of the three men find love and there is, of course, a happy ending; although the answer everybody wants to know throughout the film may not end as one hopes.

When the credits began to roll, I was told to watch just a few minutes longer. You won't believe the outfits the cast wore to provide a little more entertainment before the film ended. I feel bad that Dominic Cooper wore the bright pink outfit he did. Another thing that happened when the credits began to roll was the realization that I did enjoy watching "Mamma Mia! The Movie" and while I'm not ready to call it an instant classic, it is a better than average musical that is boosted by the memorable musical numbers that show the depth and popularity of ABBA and their catalog. I had my doubts about this movie when the screener arrived and I remember just rolling my eyes when previews began to play ions ago promoting the film. It took a pretty young blonde to finally twist my arm into watching this film and she had me prepared for a lengthy discussion of why I didn't like the film, but fortunately I didn't find much to dislike about "Mamma Mia!"

This isn't to say that I enjoyed everything about the film. There was one thing in particular that pained me and that was the singing of Pierce Brosnan. It is horrible. I heard and read some of the comments made by critics and they compared him to anything from a water buffalo to having a voice that induced vomiting. I have to agree in general and Brosnan should have had somebody else sing for him. Where was Danny Elfman? Stellan Skarsgard looks decades older than when he appeared in "The Hunt for Red October" or any of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels, but his voice is what hurts his performance as well. It isn't quite as painful to listen to the Swede, but he doesn't carry a tune very well either. Thankfully, I can use BD-Live to perhaps record my own looping of their songs for a party down the road (I really won't be doing this, but technology would allow it).

The rest of the cast are admirable in their performances. All of the male actors give good performances, but only Firth and Cooper sing well enough to entertain. The four female leads fare a little better. Amanda Seyfriend is a fellow Pennsylvanian and comes from Allentown. I was very surprised with how strong her voice is and at both her acting and her singing. Her voice is the real gem of this film. The fictional "girl power band" of Donna and the Dynamos has Streep, Walters and Baranski having most of the fun in the film with the more comedic performances and the majority of the songs. I can only recall Walters as Molly Weasley in the "Harry Potter" films and Baranski continues to portray an aging sex kitten as she did in "The Grinch," but Meryl Streep is a legendary actress. All three share a strong chemistry throughout the film and while they cannot compete with ABBA, they sound quite good.

The story itself is pretty good. Writer Catherine Johnson had written the script for the musical and worked with the team of writers to bring the musical to the big screen. This is not intended to be a powerfully dramatic film and musicals are always meant to be watched with a little suspension of reality, but the musical numbers are entertainingly introduced into the film and I enjoyed moments when the dancers and background singers were put into frame. The pacing of the film and the direction of Phyllida Lloyd shows that the veteran theatre director had a strong grasp on the material and knew exactly what was needed to make the "Mamma Mia!" musical a worthwhile cinematic experience. Very rarely does a musical become a classic and I always find a degree of hokey moments in a musical and "Mamma Mia!" contains a few of these, but the songs and scenes are good enough to easily keep the film afloat.

Video:
The 2.40:1 widescreen "Mamma Mia!" looks simply marvelous in high definition and the horribly gaudy outfits that are worn during the closing credits couldn't look any brighter than they do on Blu-ray. The film is mastered with VC-1 compression and the amount of detail and coloring through the film is about as strong as the format can provide. There are a handful of moments when either a soft filter was used or detail drops to perhaps hide some wrinkles, but this is in the minority. The various textures provided by stonework, sand and foliage look amazing. The various outfits, makeup and tropical sets are perfectly saturated. Every color in the rainbow is represented in "Mamma Mia!" and reds, blues and yellows are all perfectly rendered. The film was shot entirely in daylight, so the post-processing to create the film's night sequences show excellent shadow detail and black levels are spot on. The source print is also perfect and you'd be challenged to find a single flaw in this transfer. If only the sing-along font was just a little bit smaller…

Audio:

The biggest selling point of "Mamma Mia!" for many will be the soundtrack and ABBA and those singing the songs in the film are delivered very nicely via an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. While I thought I could do a better job singing than Pierce Brosnan, the vocals and sound effects of the film sound very good and the accompanying music is handled with aplomb. I was surprised at the nice ambient sounds that could be heard throughout the film and the rear speakers are given more to do than just playback the ABBA soundtrack. There is not a lot of bass to be heard in the subwoofer channel aside from one minor incident where Meryl Streep falls into the room containing her ex-lovers and some of the musical numbers, but the soundtrack is lively enough to keep the viewer and any ABBA fans quite happy. Spanish and French DTS 5.1 mixes are also included as are subtitles in English SDH, Spanish and French.

Extras:

Universal delivers "Mamma Mia!" in the form of a 2-disc special edition. The first disc contained in the set is the film on a Blu-ray BD-50 platter with special features galore. The second disc is the Digital Copy of the film on a DVD disc. This allows either an iTunes or Windows Media formatted version of the film to be loaded onto a personal computer, Macintosh or any portable media player that is capable of playing either of the two installable versions. While it lacks the special features and other items of the Blu-ray, fans of the film or ABBA will most certainly enjoy having the film for the go. As long as studios don't begin to charge a big premium for this popular second DVD that is included in the packaging, I feel it is a nice feature to include and it seems like most larger films now have this Digital Copy provided for both the DVD and Blu-ray releases.

"Mamma Mia!" on Blu-ray contains many next-gen features such as U-Control and BD Live The U-Control functionality includes Behind the Hits and Picture-in-Picture. The "Behind the Hits" feature brings graphical overlays with history and trivia about the recordings featured in the film and nice backstory on each song. The Picture-in-Picture is your typical collage of interviews and making of footage. All chapters but seventeen includes "Behind the Hits" information and twelve of the twenty chapters include picture-in-picture information. The BD-Live features includes My Movie Commentary which will allow you to create your own text or video commentary and then forward the information to friends for them to get your thoughts on the film. This could be a lot of fun for those unsuspecting a full alternate soundtrack that you could provide in conjunction with the sing along feature. My Chat is also provided and you can talk to your friends while watching the film. Or, if you prefer, you can sing to them.

The disc contains a few items that may be played while the feature film is viewed. The Play with Sing-Along feature provides lyrics while the film is playing so that you may belt out your best ABBA impersonation in true Karaoke glory as the film plays. This is one of those features that I would highly recommend you enjoy when you are watching the film alone. There is no friendly bouncing ball, but the lyrics change colors as you are supposed to sing the words. A Feature Commentary with Director Phyllida Lloyd provides an informative commentary where Lloyd praises her cast and crew and while she is very keen on back-patting, the commentary track does contain some very nice details about the making of the picture and some history on the source materials in which the film is based and information on ABBA.

A good number of stand-alone features are included on the disc. The familiar and nearly worthless My Scenes is the first item listed and the Sing-Along bonus feature allows any of the twenty one musical numbers to be selected and you can view the scene in question with lyrics turned on or off. This is simply a direct selection of the full-length "Play with Sing Along" feature. The Deleted Scenes (8:06) are lumped together and MPEG-2 encoded standard definition. The first 4:12 of this collection are three scenes that show each of the three men in the final moments before they leave for the island of Skopelos. Only two additional musical numbers are contained here and it is part of one scene between Sophie and Sky on the beach. The Outtakes (1:33) are quite brief and contains more "Dancing Queen." The Deleted Musical Number: "The Name of the Game" (3:02) concludes the collection of excised material.

The Making of Mamma Mia! (24:05) is broken into three chapters and shown in VC-1 encoded high definition. This includes the producer, director and other filmmakers behind the production as well as many members of the cast and crew and the making-of doc includes information about the play and the adaptation to film as well as some moments with ABBA. Anatomy of a Musical Number: "Lay All Your Love On Me" (5:42) looks at the creation of one scene and musical number with Dominic Cooper learning to sing the song and discuss his recording the song and filming the scene. Becoming a Singer (10:56) looks at ABBA and the reunion of the supporting band as the soundtrack is recorded and the cast and crew talk about working on singing the songs for the film and working with ABBA during the filming. A Look Inside Mamma Mia! (2:40) is a quick EPK feature and the "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" Music Video (3:49) and the Bjorn Ulvaeus Cameo (1:35) conclude the special features.

Closing:

I may be tempted to go out and purchase a good CD containing the hits of ABBA after watching this film. There were just so many songs that I remembered from my younger days and I greatly enjoyed the music of the film. Unless you count the singing moments of Pierce Brosnan; he is a very good actor, but not a very good singer. The film is more about the music than the story, but in general, I found "Mamma Mia!" to be an entertaining musical with a fairly strong story. This isn't a movie that will be remembered as a classic, but it is definitely worth sitting down to enjoy once. It combines good humor with good music and pretty good performances. The Blu-ray release is detailed and colorful and sounds very good. The bonus features are good and showcase many of the next-gen features that Blu-ray is capable of. Oh, and yes I did laugh a couple of times. So there is apparently nothing wrong with me.