Mamma mia here we go again. This movie is going to be a middle-aged woman’s dream come true. It boasts a cast whose median age is in the mid 50s, one former yet still dashing James Bond, lots of good vibration getaway vibes, songs by a pop group whose heyday was over 30 years ago, and a heaping helping of girl power. In short, Mamma Mia will entertain the same mixture that made Sex and the City a monster hit, notably middle-aged women, teen girls, and gay males. I’ve seen the stage show and enjoyed it, as have millions of others around the world, but the movie fails to capitalize on reaching a broader audience. Mamma Mia is content to serve the faithful and delivers a less than satisfactory product. The world of cinema is not the best place for this material.

Raised all her life on a Greek island in a Mediterranean paradise, Sophie (Big Love‘s Amanda Seyfried) is getting married. Her disapproving mother, Donna (Meryl Streep), runs a hotel and has raised her daughter by herself. Then one day Sophie goes through her mother’s diary and discovers she has three possible fathers, Harry (Colin Firth), Bill (Stellan Skarsgård), or Sam (Pierce Brosnan). She invites all three to the island to vet her real father. In agitated response, Sophie invites her old gal pals Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski) to help her during this paternity crisis. Over time old loves will be rekindled, new love will bloom, and there will be a lot of singing.

Let Mamma Mia stand as a future testament as to why you do not generally let someone helm a film when they have no film experience whatsoever. The creative talent behind the hit Broadway musical refused to grant anyone in Hollywood the rights to their worldwide sensation. So the stage director, Phyllinda Lloyd, is now also the film’s director, and oh my goodness was not the right choice. Her film inexperience shows with every second. The movie just doesn’t look right from beginning to end. There’s a noticeable “off” sensation due to Lloyd poorly shooting her scenes, editing her scenes, and directing her actors. I kept wanting, through sheer force of will, to nudge the camera angles, to change the composition a tad to make them more visually appealing, because Lloyd shoots the movie in bland static angles with minimal coverage. Mamma Mia looks so amateurish and fussily so, like Lloyd is purposefully thumbing her nose at the art of cinema. Lloyd also doesn’t bother to place any choreography in her scenes, and her actors just sort of spin and sway to the music like they were dancing in front of a bedroom mirror. It’s remarkable that a movie with so much riding on it looks so shoddy.

Presented in the reality of a stage, Mamma Mia is a shallow but fairly fun time. The movie version transports the musical into an actual Greek locale, which, to knock Lloyd yet again, she makes no real use out of (she mostly shoots her actors against rock faces and under harsh, glaring sunlight). What works on stage, when presented under the pretenses of the real world, comes across as incredibly cheesy and goofy beyond all relief (get a load of the high-stepping snorkerlers). The song and dance numbers, the character interactions, the sitcom generic plot (ripped off from 1968’s Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell), they all start to transform into camp and beg for mockery. All of a sudden the entire island turns into a Greek chorus and provides backup during the impromptu singing. It’s strange and comes so late that it never feels properly established. The characterization is pretty slim, and once the movie establishes its characters it pushes the petal to the floor. The plot whizzes by in a whirlwind of one Abba song after another, with minimal breaks in between just to change setting and barely elbow the characters forward. I don’t think the actors had any chance to breathe in between the song numbers because I know I could barely exhale before another song assaulted my senses with forced giddiness.

But here’s the odd thing. The film is so silly and played to constant high-energy capacity that after a while Mamma Mia begins to wear you down. You may begin to smile, you may begin to clap, but you’ll be guaranteed to start humming the incredibly infectious tunes. Mamma Mia is essentially an Abba jukebox with a third-rate story strung along for the ride. As a story, it leaves much to be desired, but as a musical experience it makes you realize how glorious those Abba songs are. They’re like perfect pop bundles that somehow make you feel better even if the lyrics are more bittersweet than you realize at the time. The 18 Abba songs showcased, along with a few others during a weird curtain call sing-a-long, will certainly lift your spirits just as long as you concentrate more on the music than on the often-forced context.

The actors are better than the material, clearly. Streep is her generation’s finest actress but she tries too hard to convince you of the great girl-power fun she’s having. The singing, on the other hand, is all over the map. Streep and Seyfried have the strongest voices of the bunch, which is good considering they also have the most musical numbers to sing and twirl to. Neither has a particularly sensational voice but then again they certainly distance themselves from their pitiful peers. Most of the other actors just have droning vocals but Brosnan, oh boy, I have to congratulate the man for having the courage he does. You feel embarrassed for the guy; I mean this is James Bond here. I found myself turning away whenever he opened his mouth, not wanting to look the man in the eye. Every time he started singing my theater crowd of Mamma Mia faithful began snickering and giggling. I almost feel so bad that I should send the guy a card saying, “Sorry about the singing, but hey, you’ll always have the paycheck.”

The real audience for a Mamma Mia movie is the fans of the Mamma Mia theatrical show, and the movie is tailored to their interests. The big screen version isn’t interested in converting new fans, hence the amateurish direction and disregard for reaching out for broader appeal. Mamma Mia the movie is pretty much a less zippy and ten times goofier version of the stage show except with bad singing. If that sounds like a fun evening out, then by all means enjoy. This is a mess of a movie and not a terribly good movie at that, and yet the power of those Abba songs will inject enough goodwill that you will forgive some of the movie’s transgressions. Some. Pierce Brosnan’s singing is something that cannot be forgiven nor forgotten.

Nate’s Grade: C+