You don't have to an ABBA fan to enjoy this if you don't take it seriously

Rating: 7/10 (19 July 2009)

This film was more enjoyable than I expected. I found it to be a lot of fun.
Although I recognize "Dancing Queen" and "Take A Chance On Me" as big hits, I don't really know much about the singing group ABBA and the songs they wrote. According to the reviews of "Mamma Mia," I shouldn't have liked this musical. But it was free on my cable TV so I thought I would watch a little to see for myself if it was as bad as some reviews said. After all, while Meryl Streep has been in occasional "B" movies (e.g., 1994's "The River Wild"), her performances in her movies have all been worth watching.
But despite all of its faults, and with the knowledge that the film is not meant to be taken seriously, I found I really enjoyed "Mamma Mia." As has already been described in other reviews, the plot (a girl, raised by a single mother (played by Meryl Streep), is about to be married and invites three men to the wedding to give her away on her belief that one of the three is her father) is merely a device on which to hang a number of Abba songs, not all of which have lyrics that are completely appropriate to the story. The fun is watching the mostly tongue-in-cheek performances. Meryl Streep did some singing in at least one of her previous films, but she really gets to show off her more than adequate singing ability in "Mamma Mia." Accompanying her as a trio are long time Broadway musical star and comedic actress Christine Baranski, and British actress/performer Julie Walters. The one star who seemed miscast as a singer was Pierce Brosnan.