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And now, for as complete a contrast to The Dark Knight as is humanly imaginable: on Wednesday, my mother and I went to see Mamma Mia!. I'd never seen the stage musical, so pretty much all I knew going in were the basics of the plot and the fact that it included a boatload of ABBA songs. I was also a little apprehensive about hearing Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep sing. What I wasn't expecting was the most insanely over-the-top musical in the history of the genre. Watching Mamma Mia!, you feel like you've been run over by the Happy Train-- it's such a relentlessly cheerful, self-consciously campy experience that you'll either run with it from the start, or run from it screaming. I loved it.

The plot, about a girl (Amanda Seyfried) who invites her three possible fathers to her wedding without telling her mother (Streep), is paper-thin, and it doesn't matter, because it's really just an excuse for shoehorning all those vaguely related songs into the mix. For those worried about the actors' voices, rest assured that most of them are at least competent, except for Brosnan, whose singing resembles a grotesque cross between Peter Gabriel and a sperm whale. Among the male cast, he's far outclassed by Colin Firth. (Suitor #3 is played by Stellan Skarsgård, and once you get over the bizarre incongruity of seeing him in a fluffy musical, his performance works pretty damn well). Seyfried has the best voice of the women, and her energetic take on "Honey Honey" near the beginning sets the tone: shamelessly sugary, full of exaggerated mugging and goofiness, and ridiculously entertaining as a result.

But really, describing the performances severed from the visual accompaniment is a disservice to Mamma Mia!'s pervasive atmosphere of utter lunacy. Specifically, there's no way to confront Streep's numbers without talking about the spectacle surrounding them-- a Greek (literally: the film takes place on a Greek island) chorus of colorful local peasants, Streep's two best friends (Julie Walters and Christine Baranski) egging her on and playing to the cheap seats with their outsized performances, and what seems like the entire female population of the island running after Streep and dancing to the tune of (you guessed it) "Dancing Queen". And in the midst of it all, Streep gives the most wildly overwrought performance of her career, voice alternately flat and cracking from her attempts to convey serious emotion, facial expressions straight out of a Buster Keaton silent, and some of the silliest dancing ever put on film. It should be an absolute failure, and yet it's utterly brilliant in its own perverse way, and even if it weren't the energy and enthusiasm of the songs carries the movie along and demolishes any petty logical objections.

Special mention needs to be made of Baranski, who steals the entire movie with her rendition of "Does Your Mother Know?". The setup, with Baranski rebuffing the advances of a stereotypical island stud, is as ludicrous as everything else in the film, but her feline sexiness and total command of the screen make it work brilliantly. She's confident and in complete control, her voice sounds way better than anyone else's, and it's a blast to watch.

Rating- 8/10