One is sun-sparkled Aegean blue, the other dark as ink. One teems with women scattering flowers, the other with men tossing grenades.
Both are highly entertaining, though each has moments of sheer over-the-top goofiness when viewers' eyebrows may arch toward their hairlines.
So why is “Mamma Mia!” considered a guilty pleasure, while “The Dark Knight” is widely respected as a grown-up drama?
Yes, Christopher Nolan's Batman movie has a jaw-dropping performance by Heath Ledger as the Joker, while Phyllida Lloyd's musical has – well, let's just say that my jaw remained right where it was throughout the whole thing.
But beyond Ledger's singular piece of work, there's an obvious difference between these two fantasy films. One's a chick flick, and the other is for “everyone,” defined in this case – and in many others – as everyone whose idea of a good time is watching men attempt to destroy the world or save it.
Spare me the argument that “Dark Knight” isn't a boys' club because Maggie Gyllenhaal is in it. She gives an OK performance in an OK role in a movie where Ledger, Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Eric Roberts and even a pair of old guys, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, have more interesting things to do.
Oh, and Det. Ramirez, the girl cop who plays what I believe is known as a “small but pivotal role” in the denouement? Bet you can't even name the actress who plays her. And that goes double for Judge Surrillo, the lady jurist.
To be considered serious by critics and a blockbuster among viewers, a film obviously need not include a single scene in which one woman has a meaningful exchange with another. Even a chick flick, though, has to have dudes (in the ABBA-fest, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard).
Especially when the cast is not, you know, babes in the Maggie G. sense. Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters: Not one of them has been on Maxim's Hot 100 list in – well, ever.
And, of course, while shooting and stabbing and throwing punches is serious business, singing and dancing and throwing weddings is fluffy stuff.
Never mind that “Dark Knight's” final hour, which may throw you off balance with its climax-after-climax-after-climax pacing, is as grandiose as “Mamma Mia!'s” disco-till-you-drop finale. Nolan's movie thrilled me with its opening, then let me down somewhat, while Lloyd's made me squirm a little as that ridiculous plot unfolded but sent me out of the theater as delighted as if someone had presented me with my very own mirror ball and a pair of shiny platform boots to match.
Of course, for all its imperfections, Nolan's movie gets far more than mere critical respect. A box-office behemoth, it has taken in more than $470 million – dwarfing “Mamma Mia!'s” healthy but far from record-setting $116 million.
If I sound at all surprised by this, I'm telling it wrong. The pastel fantasies of female-centered movies – even chick flicks not reeling a bit under the weight of all that ABBA-tude – rarely gain the acclaim or accrue the receipts of films powered by good old-fashioned machismo.
By the way, “Dark Knight's” Ramirez and Surrillo are played by Monique Curnen and Nydia Rodriguez Terracina, respectively. I'm guessing that, having had relatively little to do in Nolan's Gotham, both of them might have had more fun flouncing around Lloyd's Greek island while singing “Money, Money, Money.”
