REVIEWS: "Mamma Mia" and "Charlie Bartlett"

Here we go again. The hugely successful ABBA musical has been revised for the silver screen, and the high school comedy makes an underwhelming comeback.

> Mamma Mia!

Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Starring: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, Julie Walters, Christine Baranski, Dominic Cooper, Amanda Seyfriend

Rating: (PG)
5 stars (out of 5)

Review by Christine Powley

When I heard someone had bunged a whole lot of ABBA tunes together to make a stage musical, I thought it was a nutty idea.

Although ABBA were constantly on the radio as I grew up I was far too hip to like them, and their lasting appeal always passed me by.

Well, call me dim-witted and slow to catch on, because the film version of Mamma Mia! (Rialto and Hoyts) has finally revealed to me the point of ABBA.

They are just plain good fun.

Meryl Streep stars in Mamma Mia! as Donna, a woman who had a magical summer in the Greek Islands with three different boyfriends, Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgard).

The magic leaves when she is literally left holding the baby.

Twenty years on, that baby, Sophie (Amanda Seyfriend), is about to get married and she wants the mystery of her father solved.

With a great lack of forward planning, she sends each of her possible fathers an invitation to the wedding.

Donna is horrified when they arrive and much singing and high jinks ensue.

It really should not be so, but amazingly, ABBA lyrics turn out to be exactly what everyone wants and needs to say.

Streep was on television promoting the movie and she was at pains to point out that Mamma Mia! was shot on a limited budget but that has worked to its advantage.

There is an ad hoc quality to the dance numbers that give them a layer of meaning that would be absent if they were just another musical extravaganza.

While this is definitely Streep's movie, she gets able support from best friends Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski).

Her leading man, Brosnan, cannot sing but he puts so much heart into it you have to forgive him.

Mamma Mia! is the most fun I have had in a movie for ages and you definitely have to stay until the end of the credits.

The only cautionary note is that most men just will not get it.

 

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>Charlie Bartlett

Director: Jon Poll
Starring: Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr, Hope Davis, Kat Dennings, Tyler Hilton, Mark Rendall.

Rating: (M)
3 stars (out of 5)

Review by Mark Orton

The high-school comedy has been a little bit absent in recent times.

The traditional home of pimply problems, Hollywood, has been sketchy at best with follow-ups to critically successful films like Election, Rushmore or even Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Unfortunately, school corridors have fast become synonymous with bullets and blood.

America is in dire need of a teen hero who doesn't need to pack heat on the way to class.

Stand up, Charlie Bartlett.

Smart, educated, immaculately groomed and universally liked (well, sort of), Charlie (Anton Yelchin) is the poster child for a new breed of student . . . the psychiatrist.

Charlie is an only son.

His society family consists of just him and his hilariously infantile mother Marilyn (Hope Davis).

Thrown out of numerous private schools, Charlie isn't your typical thug; he just can't avoid dabbling in dodgy entrepreneurial schemes.

On his last chance at public school, Charlie's talents, insecurities, and screwed-up family issues come to the fore all at the same time.

Prescribed Ritalin by a personal shrink, Charlie senses the opportunity to make good with his new classmates.

Stocked to the hilt with a colourful assortment of pharmaceuticals, Charlie Bartlett has a meteoric rise in popularity that steers the film into the murky waters of a chemically-dependent society.

Hope Davis revels in her quirky role.

Kat Dennings is both sassy and mature as Charlie's girlfriend Susan, and Anton Yelchin belies his baby face to deliver an incredibly complex character, with panache.

The icing on the cake should be Robert Downey Jr as troubled principal Gardner.

Guzzling alcohol with abandon, Downey Jr seems content to perform a typecast version of his former self.

Brief glimpses of class do not disguise the sense of boredom that Downey Jr seems to have for the role.

Maybe he's just not comfortable as an authority figure yet.

The team behind Charlie Bartlett will be at pains to stress that this is a drama and yes, that is true.

However, the drama isn't nearly as good as the black comedy.

Charlie Bartlett had the potential to be another Napoleon Dynamite, but a moralising message got in the way.