Mamma Mia!: Critic Reviews

I won't really defend Mamma Mia!, but I will recommend how to watch it: Just stop rolling your eyes and listen.

You can have a perfectly nice time watching this spirited adaptation of the popular stage musical and, once the hangover wears off, acknowledge just how bad it is.

The story is ... urh. No film has ever had a more irrelevant story.

Logic is unnecessary to savor Mamma Mia! Escapist and fun, it never takes itself too seriously.

Mamma Mia! presents itself as a piece of clever counter-programming to this summer's surfeit of pounding, effects-driven comic-book movies. But filmgoers eager to sample its sunny, synth-pop pleasures are likely to feel just as bludgeoned.

As my dignity tried to flee the premises, my heart wouldn't let me go.

The costumes look cheap, the choreography is clunky, and the cinematography's terrible - a real shame, given the gorgeous setting.

Likable, serviceable, and eminently danceable.

If you're invited, you might as well enjoy yourself. Just don't say I didn't warn you. And don't you dare say I hate ABBA.

Feels like a souvenir program: something to revive the feelings you had watching the stage performance.

Streep has a sweet voice and knows how to use it, but it's sad to watch a perfectionist remove part of her brain and try to convince us she's having a jolly time.

The legal definition of torture has been much aired in recent years, and I take Mamma Mia! to be a useful contribution to that debate.

There are the wall-to-wall songs by ABBA, if you like that sort of thing. I don't, not much.

Everything's in twinkle overdrive. As with most stage-to-screen transfers, about a half-hour of material has been excised, and Mamma Mia! never had that much story to begin with.

The year's most aggressive chick flick, with a score of irresistibly catchy ABBA tunes sweetening the dumb story like peaches in cottage cheese.

By turns entertaining and excruciating, Mamma Mia!, the jukebox musical that strings together 19 ABBA hits on a narrative thread flimsier than dental floss, had me smiling and wincing, often at the same time.

The adaptation of the long-running stage hit is a crowd-pleasing gusher of escapism, not the least of which is respite from summertime teen action fare.

he sheer exuberance of the production overcomes its difficulties, and the incongruous mix of nostalgia, James Bond crooning and the world's greatest actress bouncing up and down on a mattress is an undeniable kick. Mamma Mia! is major fun.

Mamma Mia! is not going to make you think, nor does it want to. But it will make you sing, as long as Brosnan keeps his mouth shut.

None of them can sing, and nothing they do looks natural. Rarely have I witnessed so many pros appear so clueless.

The singing-and-dancing work for the basic excitement and energy of a live performance, but an additional boost of cinematic prowess is needed to sustain a similar rhythm on film.

A fun, crowd-pleasing alternative for an audience whose idea of entertainment runs more to infectious '70s pop ditties, spandex, sex-starved women of a certain age and bare-chested hunks than watching a caped sadist torturing criminals.

It gets by on the featherweight golden oldies of ABBA, and the treat of seeing and hearing some golden oldies of the cinema break character and belt out a song.

Cheese -- but what wonderfully salty, sinfully satisfying cheese it is.