Feisty single mother Donna has raised her daughter Sophie alone for the past twenty years. The two women have a strong bond, but Sophie deeply wishes she had a father. So when she finds Donna's old journal and discovers that there are three different men who may have 'done the deed', she invites them all to her impending wedding.
Songs and shenanigans ensue.
Frankly, whether or not you will be interested in seeing Mamma Mia! probably comes down to how you feel about ABBA's ear-wormy catalogue of hits. Because the characters will barely take a breath between belting out Swedish pop tunes, and that probably means you'll either be grooving along in your chair, or you'll be running out of the room.
As you probably know, this is a movie adaptation of the stage show. Having seen both, I can safely say that this is a significantly weaker offering. The casting has clearly been made more for name recognition than for singing ability, especially with the men. Pierce Brosnan attracted a lot of criticism for his musical efforts at the time the film came out, but frankly he's not really any worse than the other two guys, he's just asked to do a lot more than they are.
The film also tends to "go big" with the production on most of the numbers, possibly because of the mixed singing talents of the leads, and this has decidedly mixed results. The transformation of "Dancing Queen" into a girl power anthem is quite successful, but that's the exception rather than the rule.
Mamma Mia! is a fun bit of light entertainment, at least if you like ABBA, but it's hard not to think that it would have been a better film if they'd cast singers that could act rather than actors who could more-or-less sing, since the script calls for a lot more tunefulness than thespianism.
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