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ABBA provides the soundtrack as a bride-to-be invites her mother's past suitors to her wedding, hoping to discover which one is her father

RATING: PG-13

GENRE: Musical comedy

RELEASE DATE: July 18, 2008

RUNNING TIME: 108 minutes

VIOLENCE FACTOR: None

BAD WORDS: Even if there are, you won't be able to hear them.

RACY? Not really, although there are some sex-related comments.

GRANDS:

CRITIQUE:

Lots of forgiving folks, grandparents and grandchildren alike, will have a good time at this relentlessly upbeat film based on the runaway hit musical, and that's fine.

But, mamma mia, what a mess of a movie.

Mamma Mia! is the screen version of the jukebox musical that opened in London in 1999, on Broadway in 2001, and seemingly everywhere else since then. The plot, borrowed from a 1968 Gina Lollobrigida film (Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell) is merely an excuse to showcase the songs of Swedish pop group ABBA. In case you've forgotten, that means "Dancing Queen," "The Winner Takes It All," and "Take a Chance on Me," among others. But if you're one of those people who can actually keep those songs out of your head, there's not much else for you to grab onto here.

Meryl Streep stars as Donna, a single mom and ex-disco diva. She once fronted a group called Donna and the Dynamos, and now she runs a bed-and-breakfast on a remote Greek island. When Donna's 20-year-old daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is about to be married, the Dynamos (Christine Baranski and Julie Walters) fly in for the nuptials. Meanwhile, the bride-to-be has found the diary her mother kept two decades earlier, and in it, the names of Donna's three ex-suitors, one of whom is her father. Hoping finally to solve the mystery of her paternity, Sophie secretly invites the trio (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgård) to come to Greece and give her away at the wedding.

First-time film director Phyllida Lloyd and writer Catherine Johnson, who also collaborated on the original stage show, have tried to conjure on-screen energy to replace the exuberant audience interaction of the live production. So the film is nothing if not buoyant. But many of the numbers feel forced, and many of the performers look uncomfortable — it's not easy to make charmers like Brosnan and Firth look awkward, but Lloyd somehow manages. And so many of the literal and figurative notes ring false that there are moments of undeniable embarrassment. For example, Brosnan is a good sport, but he should never sing.

In general, the film's non-musical scenes work better than its lively-to-no-avail musical numbers, with the exception of Streep's delivery of the legitimately moving mother-daughter song, "Slipping Through My Fingers."

So proceed at your own risk. But before you go, make sure you already like ABBA's music, because the movie itself has little abba-cadabra.

GP Rating System:
Four Grands = Bravo, don't miss it
Three Grands = Pretty good, short list it
Two Grands = Just okay, don't dismiss it
One Grand = Yeah, we dissed it

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