Extremely camp, glitzy fun movie

Rating: 9/10 (27 April 2019)

I don't really know anyone who isn't a fan of ABBA songs and in 1999 producer Judy Craymer and writer Catherine Johnson skillfully put together a story based on the songs and the musical 'Mamma Mia!' was born.
9 years later, Craymer and Johnson brought the musical to the big screen.
Single mother Donna Sheridan's past comes back to haunt her as her daughter Sophie, who has read her mother's diary and realising there are three men who are potentially her father, invites them to her wedding in the hope of finding out which one it is.
The cast list is fantastic, with names like Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried as 'Donna' and 'Sophie', Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellen Skarsgard play 'Sam', 'Harry' and 'Bill' (the tree potential fathers), Christine Baranski and Julie Walters as 'Tanya' and 'Rosie', Donna's best friends and Dominic Cooper as 'Sky' (Sophie's fiance), who are all obviously having a fantastic and fun time singing and dancing away to ABBA songs whilst moving the story along. There was severe criticism when the film first came out that the singing wasn't very good especially from Brosnan, but in my opinion the critics missed the point, even Brosnan himself admitted in interviews at the time that he isn't a singer, but he was having the time of his life and with the film's intention of just being a fun, enjoyable movie it was not setting out to be a serious film-musical.
The cinematography is wonderful, the direction, acting and production are superb, and the choreography of the dance routines are terrific.
'Mamma Mia!' is a fantastic, camp, glitzy film. It's highly entertaining, very funny and even quite touching at times.
Even if you are not a 'musicals' fan but you love the songs from ABBA, grab a bag of popcorn, dispel all credibility and just enjoy.