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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
Adoration
74
Afghan Star
48
Alien Trespass
56
American Violet
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57
Away We Go
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
62
Big Man Japan
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55
Brothers Bloom, The
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx
Call of the Wild
63
Cheri
62
Cherry Blossoms
63
Dead Snow
65
Departures
18
Downloading Nancy
58
Easy Virtue
70
End of the Line, The
77
Every Little Step
64
Examined Life
80
Food, Inc.
38
Gigantic
56
Girl from Monaco, The
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
87
Gomorrah
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx
Home
82
Hunger
91
Hurt Locker, The
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
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54
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71
Jerichow
58
Julia
74
Lemon Tree
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Life is Hot in Cracktown
40
Limits of Control, The
42
Little Ashes
64
Lymelife
50
Management
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Merry Gentleman, The
66
Moon
35
New York
62
Not Forgotten
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Offshore
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O'Horten
64
Outrage
40
Paris 36
54
Pontypool
71
Pressure Cooker
52
Quiet Chaos
83
Revanche
67
Rudo y Cursi
86
Seraphine
65
Sex Positive
70
Shall We Kiss?
77
Sin Nombre
59
Sleep Dealer
74
Song of Sparrows, The
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
82
Sugar
84
Summer Hours
61
Sunshine Cleaning
28
Surveillance
42
Tennessee
63
Tetro
64
Throw Down Your Heart
80
Tokyo Sonata
63
Tokyo!
70
Tony Manero
74
Treeless Mountain
88
Tulpan
74
Two Lovers
83
Tyson
83
U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Mamma Mia!
Universal Pictures
 |
|
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some sex-related comments
Starring
Meryl Streep,
Pierce Brosnan,
Colin Firth,
Stellan Skarsgård,
Julie Walters,
Dominic Cooper,
Amanda Seyfried,
and
Christine Baranski
An independent, single mother who owns a small hotel on an idyllic Greek island, Donna is about to let go of Sophie, the spirited daughter she's raised alone. For Sophie's wedding, Donna has invited her two lifelong best girlfriends--practical and no-nonsense Rosie and wealthy, multi-divorcee Tanya--from her one-time backing band, Donna and the Dynamos. But Sophie has secretly invited three guests of her own. On a quest to find the identity of her father to walk her down the aisle, she brings back three men from Donna's past to the Mediterranean paradise they visited 20 years earlier. Over 24 chaotic, magical hours, new love will bloom and old romances will be rekindled on this lush island full of possibilities. (Universal Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Musical
|
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Catherine Johnson
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Phyllida Lloyd
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: December 16, 2008
Theatrical: July 18, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
108 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK | USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
The Hollywood Reporter
Ray Bennett
It's a delightful piece of filmmaking with a marvelous cast topped by Meryl Streep in one of her smartest and most entertaining performances ever.
88
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
The movie takes the ABBA jukebox musical that ate London, and is still eating Broadway, and turns it into a surprisingly sensuous experience.
88
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The chorus backs the soloists powerfully, and they are as fresh as the rest of the film: fat and fit, homely and handsome, young gods and old codgers – in short, people you might really see in Greece. Reality in a musical? That alone makes it worth your open-eared attention.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Mamma Mia! is fun, the music's terrific and the cast is appealing.
75
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
An exuberant if not always brilliantly crafted adaptation of the campy ABBA musical.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
It's airheaded just like the songs it embraces but, if you enjoy them, there's every reason to believe you'll appreciate the film.
75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The good-natured silliness is contagious. When Streep runs singing through a Greek village, it's like a spirited homage to "The Sound of Music."
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
This is an actress (Streep) who can pull off anything -- including a shamelessly kitschy musical.
70
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Yes, of course this is fairly old-fashioned entertainment, but it's really, really entertaining.
70
Slate
Dana Stevens
It makes bursting spontaneously into song seem like a perfectly reasonable--indeed, highly desirable--thing to do, and it leaves the audience wanting to do the same. I see a big uptick in late-summer karaoke parties.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Taken for what it is – a fluffy, intergenerational farce as a frame for some seventies musical nostalgia – Mamma Mia! just gets away with it, in spite of director Lloyd's lack of cinematic inexperience.
63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
As a story, Mamma Mia! is a sham, a narrative so rickety it makes "Grease" seem like Shakespeare. It fails as a musical, too, since only about half of the songs have any bearing on the scene that preceded them.
63
Premiere
Emily Rems
Before plunking down your cash for a ride on the Mamma Mia! express when it pulls into town, just ask yourself one question: Do I really dig ABBA?
60
Variety
Jordan Mintzer
Scribe-creator Catherine Johnson (also in her first screen outing) and theater-opera vet Lloyd can't seem to find the right tone or style for their globally celebrated material.
60
Empire
Angie Errigo
Cute, clean, camp fun, full of sunshine and toe tappers. Guaranteed to put grins on tweenies who are in to High School Musical, grans with a pair of platforms still at the back of the wardrobe, and a lot of people in between tone.
60
Time
Richard Corliss
By the end-credit sequence, when the stars appear in spandex outfits to reprise Dancing Queen, the audience may be singing along as if they'd overdosed on ouzo.
58
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
It's tempting to say that Mamma Mia! has the worst choreography of any big-screen musical in history, though that would imply that what happens in the film IS choreography.
50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
It's funny what you buy completely onstage and resist completely, or nearly, on-screen. Case in point: Mamma Mia!
50
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
All singing! All dancing! All squealing! The money-minting Broadway musical has been adapted into the year's most aggressive chick flick, with a score of irresistibly catchy ABBA tunes sweetening the dumb story like peaches in cottage cheese.
50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
The incongruous mix of real locations and stage sets, real voices and overdubs, is a constant distraction, while the choreography lumbers in group numbers and goes flat in more intimate ones.
50
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
This is a movie guaranteed to please crowds, if only because it insists on their affection so strenuously.
50
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Meryl Streep can do anything: sing, dance, do splits, act her heart out. She (almost) saves this clumsy, overwrought film version of the Abba musical that's been running on stages from Broadway to Barcelona since 1999.
50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
This movie wasn't made for me. It was made for the people who will love it, of which there may be a multitude. The stage musical has sold 30 million tickets, and I feel like the grouch at the party.
50
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
By turns entertaining and excruciating.
50
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
You can have a perfectly nice time watching this spirited adaptation of the popular stage musical and, once the hangover wears off, acknowledge just how bad it is.
50
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
It's little more than droopy ditties draped around a threadbare plot.
50
Austin Chronicle
Kimberley Jones
I COULD do without "Dancing Queen" stuck in my head, but that will unstick soon enough, and with any luck so too will the memory of Streep noodling on an air guitar.
50
NPR
Bob Mondello
This plot is not being taken terribly seriously. It's mostly a pretext for songs that are mostly a pretext for acting silly.
50
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
On the scale of modern musical adaptations, it's not a disaster of "The Producers" proportions. But it is missing the razzle-dazzle of a success like "Chicago."
50
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Though the filmmakers may have been imagining they were re-creating the old days of MGM musicals, it's the Village People's misguided "Can't Stop the Music" that comes to mind instead.
50
TV Guide
Ken Fox
The direction is slack -- it's Lloyd's first feature film and it shows -- the choreography clumsy and every ten minutes there's yet another gratuitous showstopper shouting in your face and insisting you have a good time.
42
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Poor Pierce Brosnan. Sport that he is, he does his level best to be a song-and-dance man but it's just not in him. He's touchingly awful. The same could probably be said for the entire movie.
42
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Like a party where everyone is so desperate to have a good time that it makes you miserable.
40
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Seyfried (of Big Love and Mean Girls) is a radiant object and can sing, but I'd like to forget the others--especially Brosnan, whose singing is the best imitation I've heard of a water buffalo.
30
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
Ferocious onslaught of obligatory good cheer.
25
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
I can see how Mamma Mia! might be a fun stage musical. As a movie musical, it's a train wreck.
20
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Watching Streep and her two BFFs, played by Christine Baranski and Julie Walters, grinning and giggling their way through Mamma Mia! I felt I was being thoroughly, and unenjoyably, punished.
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 168 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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