Mama

TAKE 1: One Man’s Opinion

…because film is largely subjective

by Frederick William Springer III

 

Mama

Release Date:  18 January 2013                                                                       Runtime:  100 Minutes  

Review Date:  26 February 2013                                                                      Rating:  3.5 (of 6)

     Having seen this back-to-back with Texas Chainsaw, Mama was a more welcomed experience.  In this business, they say never to work with animals or children.  So my hat’s off to the director (Andres Muschietti) for getting the necessary performances from the two young stars (Megan Charpentier & Isabelle Nelisse) and to the two young stars themselves for delivering.*

     The story is alright, intriguing enough to want to see what will happen next.  The only annoyance here is that the motive is tied to the standard ghost fare.  They make a point of reiterating the old notion that a ghost is the emotional essence of someone returned to right a terrible wrong before it can be at rest. 

     That in itself isn’t necessarily bad.  However, the wrong here isn’t that a woman in the late 1800s committed suicide, taking and murdering her baby with her, it’s that on her plunge to death she lost grip of the baby she was killing, separating before impact at different points killed them both.  So now she must kill a new child and make sure they both die together rather than moments apart.   Really?  I get that the woman did escape from a mental institute so her logic might not be all there, but how is killing another innocent righting a wrong that will earn you eternal peace?

     If you can get past that, then you should enjoy the rest of the story.  I wanted to give this a 4 but see I only gave Sinister a 4, and that was much better.  So I’ll give this a 3.5.

 

   *Actually, correction:  5 young stars as the two youngsters were 5 years younger, and played by 3 different girls, in the opening scenes.