"Give me two tickets for Mamma Mia!", "We want five tickets for Mamma Mia!". ”…… It's a light-hearted weekend again, and customers at the 3,025 North American theater ticket halls are lining up to sell movie tickets, and the most sold of them is the new film "Mamma Mia!". Whether it's a veteran audience who has seen the stage play or a new audience who is new to the story for the first time, they all have the same anticipation mood, and the trailer for "MM!" was fantastic!

With beautiful songs, hilarious dance scenes, lively performances, funny lines, a joyous atmosphere, and scenic islands, all of which are based on an interesting wedding story and a hit classic stage play, there is no better movie to look forward to for those who love musical musicals, at least not this year.

And the cast is really attractive, the biggest attraction is naturally Meryl Streep, who dances and sings, since "The Demon Wears Prada", Streep's business ability seems to have suddenly exploded, and he has appeared in commercial films again and again, this time he cooperated with Flame Movies for the second time, and he is 56 years old, and he ran to act in a vibrant youth song and dance film at a young age, which really made her fans sweat, and now I don't know if it's good or bad.

At the same time, there are also the invincible young Amanda Seyfried, the powerful British actor Dominic Cooper, and the handsome old guys with superb acting skills, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, ...... "Hahaha!", "Hehehe!" In the screening room, looking at the wonderful stories on the big screen, the crowded audience burst into bursts of laughter, and it can be seen from the faces of the audience full of smiles that the flame has launched a good enough song and dance movie. Whether it is "MM!" fans, fans of flame music and dance films, ordinary audiences, etc., the vast majority of people have not been disappointed, and this 110-minute vocal video is really a great enjoyment.

What they don't know, though, is that another "Mamma Mia!" shot by Tom Hanks' production company, Playtone and Universal Pictures, isn't as satisfying.

In fact, the 07 Flame version and the 08 Universal version of "MM!" director (Philippa Lloyd), screenwriter (Catherine Johnson), and first producer (Judy Kramer) are the same, they are all the original cast of the stage play, and the starring lineup is almost identical, which is also the result of Kramer and others' same ideas, but because of the difference in the producer list, original soundtrack, editing, choreography and other personnel, the two versions of "Mamma Mia!" have a very huge difference.

It's not about the story, some changes in the narrative rhythm and singing style are enough to make a song and dance movie change drastically.

Wang Yang knows what shortcomings the 08 Universal version of "MM!" has and what the audience's main criticism of it is, so he naturally won't sit idly by and watch things remain the same. Rotten Tomatoes' summary of the Universal edition was: "This jukebox cabaret musical is full of light-hearted fun, but the rough singing and posturing may make you not think they 'can dance' dance steps from start to finish." ”

The biggest problem lies in the songs and dances, on the one hand, all its interludes are based on the representative works of the Swedish band ABBA that swept the world in the 70s of the last century, and some songs almost completely retain the arrangement style of the original work.

It's not surprising that Katherine Johnson is a die-hard fan of ABBA in her own right, and even the name "Mamma-Mia!" comes from one of ABBA's signature songs, "Mamma-Mia", and Kramer also said that "ABBA songs are the best drama", so "Mamma-Mia" became the theme song, and even created a plot to bring out those songs.

Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Albert said, "ABBA songs are all-to-all, do you like that kind of thing? The Washington Times' Christian Toto said, "'Mamma Mia!' is a sloppy, chaotic musical ornament that only follows three minutes of happiness when those bastard ABBA songs are sung." E!Online's Dezada Gobel said: "Mamma Mia! doesn't even have a big, beautiful part, and the amount of music is too much to cut it into tiny pieces. ”…… A stage play is a stage play, a movie is a movie, if you lose the rhythm and storytelling that a movie should have, there will only be a bad result, and the bigger problem is actually the singing voice and the singer.

"ABBA is ruined, what a skill, stupid cow!", "Stupid and stupid little plot, terrible singing, I regret that I didn't deliberately damage my ears when I watched this movie." "Some of the singing sounds like karaoke in a local bar. ”…… Audience comments were littered with "great music, terrible vocals", and if too much ABBA was a shortcoming, bad singing magnified this shortcoming to the point of being unbearable.

The song and dance films released in recent years have a feature, that is, the songs in the film are sung by the actors themselves, and now it is the atmosphere brought by "Youth Singing and Dance".

All the actors in the 08 Universal version have received two or three months of special singing learning training, and most of them have messed up...... Singing is different from other things, talent is really important, sometimes it is not acquired hard work can make up for it, but it is a pop superstar, not "very professional, very good", not young people, just like Jessica, Rachel and others back then, although they sang far from shocking, but they were youthful and energetic, which can cover up a lot of shortcomings, and it is also shown that Amanda Seyfried has not been criticized, but has been praised a lot.

Of course, the young people are particularly capable of learning, but the old people are hard, after a round of hard practice, Meryl Streep sings well, she can always be the bright spot, Colin Firth barely qualified, and Brosnan and Skarsgard are really singing karaoke, nervous and trembling voices, obvious drifting sense all show their amateur level. Everyone is used to listening to ABBA singing at the top of their lungs, and then listening to barely qualified and amateur level...... Give back to Rotten Tomatoes and rotten eggs.

At the beginning, in order to obtain the film copyright, Flame Films, led by Wang Yang, promised Judy Kramer and others not to interfere too much, so as to ensure that the movie version of "Mamma Mia!" had the look they wanted and would not ruin this classic stage play. But it doesn't mean that the flames are ignored, they just need the production experience of a cabaret musical, and they want to make the best movie, so they chose the flame movie and the magic young.

Knowing where the problem is, the solution will follow, Wang Yang repeatedly made it clear to Lloyd, Catherine, Kramer and others that they must not bring fan mentality into the film, and that there is no problem for ABBA songs to appear on the big screen, but not excessively, and pay more attention to the rhythm of the movie; he also talked with them a lot about the expressiveness of stage plays and films, narrative methods and other topics, and exchanged experiences and views with each other.

So the change followed, the flame version of "Mamma Mia!" was streamlined and richer in the selection of tracks, there was no ABBA song all-to-all, no plot thrown for the song, everything was suitable for the service story as the core of the purpose, but it made Kramer and others suffer a lot because of love.

On the huge issue of singing level, Wang Yang also feels very tricky, filming two years in advance will not make Brosnan and them become Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Jackson, the effect of a few months of training time is almost like that, as actors acting in a movie, they can't accept full-time training for up to half a year and a year, not to mention that the talent is there;

Unless they are looking for actors with superb singing skills to play the leading role, but firstly, the acting skills cannot be guaranteed, and secondly, Kramer and others have recognized Streep and Brosnan. Therefore, Flame can only find a better training and recording team in a solid manner, the training time of the leading actors is as long as possible, and their comprehensive singing ability such as voice characteristics and emotional investment is considered from the time of song selection...... There is a problem with the song, there is also a problem with the dance, the "pretentious dance steps" are naturally not very good, the choreography and camera scenes are to blame, but it seems that the choreographer can't be blamed for anything, several leading actors are really old bones, Streep was 57 years old when the 08 version was filmed, Brosnan was 54 years old, Firth was 47 years old, Skarsgård was 56 years old, and he was not a professional dancer before, can he compare with "Dance Out of My Life"?

But the dance of "Youth Musical" is not necessarily thrilling, the key lies in the integration with the scene, etc., and the songs of the ugly songs also make the audience's attention more focused on the dance and become more critical.

Although Flame ace dancer Anne Fletcher did not serve as the choreographer, the flame team tempered by the "Youth Musical" series and the artistic direction team led by Fletcher brought a wealth of dance experience to "Mamma Mia!"

On the other hand, there are all kinds of problems brought by the director, in fact, if you only consider the production itself, Universal Pictures and Flame Films would not want the 50-year-old British lady Philippa Lloyd to direct, she is a great stage director, but the movie side is zero.

"Look at its cheap costumes, bulky dance moves, horrible cinematography, a real shame. —Elizabeth Wiezman, New York Daily News; You can have a perfect good time watching this high-spirited adaptation of the popular musical stage play, but you need to admit how bad it is. "——. Scott, The New York Times; A philosopher once said, 'Be wary that people on the big screen have more fun than people sitting in the audience.' 'Mamma Mia!That's good advice. —Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times...... The Flames had a better option, such as Sarah Schugman, who still gave the microphone to Lloyd because of the original cast.

obviously has a large number of good actors, many American and British "national treasure" old actors, if these people are not good, they don't know who can do it, but there are a lot of comments about "bad performances", naturally not Streep, but other new and old actors have been criticized. The main problem is how to grasp the film performance in the style of the stage play? Lloyd obviously did not give much good guidance, including the costumes, photography, sets and other departments.

You must know that Ann Rose, the costume designer of the 08 Universal version, is a four-time Oscar nominee for Best Costume Design and won a trophy (1/4), which is really helpless to be ridiculed by film critics as "cheap clothing".

Even if Flame Movie has money and experience, even if Wang Yang has the foresight and cannot replace Lloyd, many things are inevitable, and things in the world are often not perfect. However, Flame is not without any targeted measures, Wang Yang has no time to be a producer, he is busy with "500 Days with Shamo" and the awards season during the preparation and filming period, Anne Fletcher also declined the producer invitation because she was tired and rested, plus the "original team", so Flame's strategy focused on post-editing, and invited gold medal editor Margaret Goodspeed.

However, despite this, despite the 08 Universal version of the Rotten Tomatoes index of 54%/41%/76%, the mainstream media is in decline, and the audience does not give high scores, it seems to be a bad movie, "Mamma Mia!" does have its own unique charm, in the case of a head-on collision with the tough and crazy "The Dark Knight" released at the same time, the opening box office still received 44.84 million, and the final North American box office was 143 million, 465 million overseas, and the global box office was as high as 609.8 million US dollars, and its production cost was 52 million.

Part of the problem has been strangled in the cradle, part of the problem has been solved and the prescription has been perfected, the implementation effect is also very good, the "change" has been great, the flame version of "Mamma Mia!" with a production cost of 65 million has been freshly released in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and many other box offices.

It's June 2006, and its contemporaneous rivals include the comedy "Crazy Priest", the American version of the romance "Untouchable Lovers", the family comedy "Garfield 2", the second week of "Cars", and the third week of "Breaking Up Men and Women...... What will be the performance of its evaluation word-of-mouth and box office results?

As night and day changed, ink-scented newspapers with reviews of "Mamma Mia!" hit the shelves, and viewers went to IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and other places to rate them.

(To be continued)