Okay, gentlemen, a show of hands if your significant other has dragged you kicking and screaming to see Mamma Mia! on stage at some point in the recent past. Now comes the hard part. Raise your hands if you eventually found yourself – albeit reluctantly – enjoying the music, the performances, the sheer spectacle of the whole thing. I have to admit unabashedly I fell for every hook, line, and singer in this exuberant celebration of the music of Swedish super group ABBA. In the spirit of full disclosure, I also have to confess that I grew up listening to the band’s music and still find songs like “Dancing Queen” and “Knowing Me, Knowing You” infectious and undeniably catchy. So I was already predisposed to liking a full stage show built around ABBA’s bubbly pop canon. But not everything designed for a live stage experience can smoothly translate into the film medium; and musicals are especially challenging to mount.

So my initial reaction to hearing about a long-overdue film version of the runaway hit Mamma Mia! was one of curious anticipation. Then I heard about some of the key casting choices… and I became a bit more trepidatious. People like Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skargard are competent and talented actors, all… but could they sing and dance as well as they could deliver dramatic line readings? To be honest, their level of success in belting out ABBA’s deceptively simple-sounding pop tunes varies from person to person, and the ladies clearly excel in delivering the song-and- dance numbers. But that’s not to say the men are a complete loss, either, and their earnest attempts come across as both unrefined yet real. It helps that everyone sings their own material; there’s nothing more distracting than hearing a canned professional vocal coming out of an actor’s lip-synching mouth. And it helps that ABBA’s music is so well-crafted and identifiable that the delivery almost takes a backseat to the songs themselves.

Borrowing the same bare bones, contrived plot that drove the musical stage production, Mamma Mia! The Movie tells the story of young Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) who lives with her mother, Donna (Meryl Streep), on a Greek island where they also run a hotel. Sophie is about to marry her fiancé, Sky (Dominic Cooper), but is troubled by the fact that her father won’t be there to give her away. Donna has never told Sophie who her father is, but after sneaking a peek at Donna’s diary, Sophie has been able to narrow the field down to three possible candidates: Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Harry Bright (Colin Firth), and Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgard). Obsessed with the notion of having her father walk her down the aisle, Sophie invites all three to the wedding without telling her mother. All three arrive on the island just before the ceremony under the pretense that Donna, herself, had invited them. When Donna sees the three men from her promiscuous past, she panics and doesn’t know why they’ve suddenly decided to show up.

Thankfully, Donna’s two closest friends – Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters) – have also arrived for the wedding and they are on hand to help her sort things out. The trio used to perform as a singing group back in Donna’s heyday and her two former band mates gently remind her of her carefree youthful days with an uplifting performance of the show’s centerpiece, “Dancing Queen.” Not getting the reception they expected, Sam, Harry, and Bill go for a sail around the island aboard Bill’s boat, but Sophie chases them down and begs for them to stay for the wedding ceremony. They agree and everyone attends the planned bachelor and bachelorette parties that night. Donna, Tanya, and Rosie decide to relive their glory days by staging for Sophie a special reunion performance of their former group, Donna and the Dynamos. Meanwhile, Donna’s three former lovers get lured into the bachelorette party and Donna confronts each of them about whether they could possibly be her father. While no one is totally sure, each of the three confesses to being her father. Confused, Sophie ultimately asks her mother to give her away during the wedding to avoid further conflict.

On Sophie’s wedding day as Donna prepares to attend the ceremony, Sam professes his never-ending love to Donna; but she rejects him, stressing how she never needed a man before to raise her daughter and she doesn’t need one now. Overcome with emotion and guilt during the wedding ceremony, Donna decides to tell Sophie that she’s not really sure who her father is, but she’s interrupted by the three men who happily agree to share the title of father equally, one third each. Still unsure if they’re ready to be married, Sophie and Sky opt to postpone the wedding and travel around the world together first – something Sky had wanted to do from the beginning. Not wanting to waste a planned ceremony and reception, Sam once again proposes to Donna, who finally accepts. All works out well for Harry, who admits Donna was the first and the last woman he ever loved, as he makes eye contact with another man. Meanwhile, Rosie and Bill begin an amusing courtship that will undoubtedly blossom into a full-fledged affair. During the big wedding reception finale, all the couples are united for a final send-off, as Sophie and Sky sail off the island to begin their new adventure together… while Donna and Sam remain as newlyweds at the hotel.

Granted, the premise is more than a bit contrived and forced so it can fit in with the assortment of ABBA songs and still make sense. But all Broadway productions that eventually make their way to the silver screen go through the same machinations. A show like Mamma Mia! begins and ends with the music and the collection of ABBA tunes used here carries the thinly-veiled plot just fine. As a live musical experience, Mamma Mia! derived its success from the uplifting and identifiable wall-to-wall songs that kick in every few minutes to move the story forward. Mamma Mia! The Movie taps into that same, undeniable charm and appeal and steps it up by offering the additional eye candy of a fine-looking cast of consummate actors and actresses playing roles that were previously relegated to less- seasoned performers. Although not nearly as visually dazzling or stylish as Julie Taymor’s brilliant Across the Universe, which used the music of The Beatles to great effect, Mamma Mia! The Movie is similar in its use of infectious and enduring pop songs to tell an otherwise lackluster love story.

As for the somewhat questionable casting choices, everyone does a skillful job in their respective roles… as long as they’re talking and delivering dialogue, that is. Granted, not everyone here is known for their vocal prowess, but I again have to applaud them all for putting in a valiant effort. Meryl Streep is in top form and actually turns out to be a pretty decent singer, too. Her performance of “The Winner Takes It All” near the end is actually quite moving. She’s slightly upstaged by the luminous Amanda Seyfried, who’s not only easy on the eyes, but also a superb vocal talent. Her opening take on “I Have a Dream” is nothing short of captivating. Gravitating towards the mediocre are the likes of Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, and Colin Firth – who all have some shining moments, but then seem to be struggling with other numbers. Then we have poor Pierce Brosnan and Stellan Skarsgard, both great actors whom I’d prefer not to hear sing again anytime soon, thank you very much. Poor Stellan warbles through “Take a Chance on Me” and Pierce seems about ready to pop a vein in his forehead as he strives to belt out “S.O.S.”

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s original 2.40:1 aspect ratio is presented in a very good high definition transfer compressed with the AVC video CODEC. Despite skewing a bit on the soft side at times – which I suspect was a stylistic choice – the image quality is mostly sharp, detailed, and well-defined. Color balance is also quite good and the exterior locales of the Greek island pop with rich blues, bright yellows, and shining whites. Black levels remain deep, dark, and inky and the source print reveals no signs of specks or blemishes. Flesh tones all look natural and nicely rendered while compression artifacts are nowhere to be found. One annoying drawback is the director’s obvious use of day-for-night photography that was employed for virtually all night sequences; they seem more than a bit distracting when you can clearly see sunlight reflecting off the water. Details such as the lace design in Sophie’s wedding dress and the intricate pattern in Donna’s clothing all stand out, and although the color palette and occasional soft focus prohibit this from becoming a reference-quality disc, it is certainly a solid, film- like image. Overall, a very good video presentation.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

This being a musical, the music is paramount and the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless track on this BD is certainly up to the task of providing a full ambient soundstage for ABBA’s pop tunes. Although a little lean on bottom end, this active and aggressive mix delivers discrete content to all six channels throughout the duration of the film. With ample left/right directional effects through the front channels and equally-impressive bleed-through sounds coming from the rears, the track provides an enveloping surround experience. Dialogue remains clear through the center channel, while the bulk of the 22 musical numbers within the film proper emanate from the front and rear channels. Bass seemed a little anemic, though, especially for a DTS track. Highlights include the film’s title track, “Mamma Mia!” along with powerful renditions of “Dancing Queen” and “Super Trouper.” Despite the exclusion of “The Name of the Game” and “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” both of which were part of the Broadway show, this is a very good and vibrant audio presentation.

The optional subtitles are in English SDH, Spanish and French.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Mamma Mia! The Movie makes its high definition debut with a great collection of comprehensive and entertaining bonus features, beginning with a feature-length running audio commentary track with director Phyllida Lloyd flying solo. Lloyd is amicable and chimes in with some interesting comments about the history of the project and how she first collaborated with producer Judy Craymer and writer Catherine Johnson to bring the musical to the stage. She often makes comparisons between the stage and movie versions and noted the challenges in condensing the over two-hour live show down to 109 minutes. After seeing Lloyd interact with Craymer and Johnson in some of the other supplementary material on the BD, it would have been nice to include them in the session as well, since they seem to have a genuine and easy rapport with one another.

A karaoke-like sing-along feature titled Sing-Along to Songs allows you to turn subtitled lyrics on and off during all of the movie’s big musical numbers. Unlike karaoke, however, it doesn’t provide instrumental versions of the music to sing over. After taking a stab at “S.O.S.,” I had a little more empathy for Pierce Brosnan’s plight.

Next is a collection of deleted scenes (8:06 aggregate) that doesn’t really offer anything of substance and mostly consists of little transitions between one scene and another that were best left on the cutting room floor. A too-brief series of outtakes (1:33 aggregate) is a bit more entertaining, showing rare examples of the always-professional Meryl Streep making frequent blunders during the shoot. It’s fun watching Pierce Brosnan telling her to hit her mark and I would have liked to see more of the same.

There’s a deleted musical number for The Name of the Game (3:01), which is actually quite good, despite the underlit day-for-night photography. It’s a great performance from Amanda Seyfried, one of the better singers here, and it’s one of ABBA’s best songs, to boot, so I’m not sure why this didn’t make the final cut.

The first of several featurettes begins with The Making of Mamma Mia! (24:05 aggregate) that is broken into three sections: Birthing Mamma Mia!, The Filmmaking, and The Cast. Taking the form of a typical EPK offering, each individual section is brisk and informative. The first segment focuses on how the whole Mamma Mia! phenomenon began and includes interviews with director Phyllida Lloyd, producer Judy Craymer, and writer Catherine Johnson. It’s amusing to note how the three women readily concur that the characters of Donna, Tanya, and Rosie were modeled on themselves, although they don’t all agree as to who is based on whom. The second segment is more about the shoot itself and how all the cast members had to go through months of both vocal and dance training before cameras started to roll. The third and final segment is all about the casting for the film, and all the key players explain how they were familiar with the show and were more than eager to get involved with the film version.

The Anatomy of a Musical Number: ‘Lay All Your Love on Me’ (5:41) featurette examines the process of putting all the choreography, camera angles, and lip-synching together into a filmed musical number. It’s an interesting look into how these elaborately-staged scenes come together, although I thought the swimmers dancing on the pier in their flippers were a bit silly.

One of the more intriguing featurettes is titled Becoming A Singer (10:54) and it focuses mostly on how all the actors and actresses met with ABBA pianist and composer Benny Andersson to learn the songs for the movie. Benny was keen to have all the performers sing in their own voices – no matter how good or bad. It’s also interesting to note that Benny, along with band mate Bjorn Ulvaeus, re-recorded all the ABBA tracks with the original session musicians who played on their classic albums. Everyone remembered the songs with little prodding and fell right back into the groove.

The deceptively-titled A Look Inside Mamma Mia! (2:40) is actually just an extended trailer for the movie. There’s also a music video for Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (3:49) starring Amanda Seyfried singing the ABBA hit intercut with scenes from the movie. And there’s a brief snippet titled Bjorn Ulvaeus Cameo (1:35) that shows the whole sequence from the closing credits set to “Waterloo” in which Bjorn appears strumming a harp with a group of heavenly beings. Oddly enough, Benny Andersson also has a noteworthy cameo in the movie during “Dancing Queen,” but doesn’t get his own bonus feature.

Universal continues their annoying trend of including supplementary material as part of their U-Control picture-in-picture feature on Mamma Mia! While the picture-in-picture content offers the usual behind-the-scenes footage that’s clumsy and difficult to access, as an ABBA fan I did enjoy the text-based “Behind the Hits” option in which you can call up information about each song during the movie, including who wrote it, on which album it first appeared, and where it originally charted. The BD also offers downloadable content for players that are BD-Live enabled, along with a second digital copy DVD that allows you to transfer the movie onto portable media devices via a Windows-based PC or Apple’s video iPod.

The 109-minute film is divided into twenty chapters.

Final Thoughts

Contrived and predictable, Mamma Mia! The Movie nevertheless is an exuberant and fun-filled musical journey through the bubbly pop catalog of Swedish super group ABBA. Your enjoyment of the Broadway show on which it is based and, hence, the movie version is likely to depend on your appreciation for ABBA, but like the stage production I was with this movie from the get-go. Although the musical talent of the cast varies, their acting abilities certainly make them ideal for their respective roles. With very good video and audio presentations and an ample collection of interesting bonus material, this BD is highly recommended.