Mamma Mia! Review

The stage show has been entertaining gleeful audiences in the West End for a decade, now it's time for "Mamma Mia!" the movie to hit the big screen and spread the ABBA induced joy across the globe.

After much cajoling from producer Judy Craymer, ABBA's bearded musical geniuses Benny and Bjorn agreed to lend their songs to the musical and the film. So just what kind of story could possibly fit with ABBA's hits? Well a story as saccharine and dramatic as the songs themselves. 20-year-old Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) lives on an idyllic island in Greece where she runs a bed and breakfast with her mother Donna (Meryl Streep). Soon to be married to Sky (Dominic Cooper), Sophie dreams of finding her father before the wedding and gets her chance when she stumbles on the diary her mother kept during the summer she fell pregnant. Yes, it seems her mother had a busy summer that year, as Sophie has three potential fathers. Impetuous Sophie secretly invites all three of them to her wedding on her mother's behalf. Cue Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgard). Donna's best friends wisecracking Rosie (Julie Walters) and twice-divorced Tanya (Christine Baranski) also come along.

Donna is teetering on the brink, overwhelmed by ex-boyfriends, the wedding and ABBA songs to boot. Emotional characters are what Streep does best and she's got a good set of pipes too. The most surprising performance though is from Pierce Brosnan, the ex 007 can sing and dance, but sadly Colin Firth doesn't fare as well, and seems at odds with the campness. The other thing at odds at times is the choreography, some of the dance scenes would just look better on stage and in an outdoor setting the frequent emergence of the chorus singers seems intrusive and in places maniacally strange. The catchphrase of the stage show is "let the joy wash over you", here it feels more like the joy is steam-rolling you but it's easier not to resist and just enjoy the sugary music high.