First Mamma Mia Review is a Rave

It doesn't get much better than this.

No matter how many blockbusters there are, Universal's screen version of the global hit stage musical "Mamma Mia!" is the most fun to be had at the movies this or any other recent summer.

Teenage boys may be glued to the latest action adventure, but the rest of the family will have a rollicking good time dancing in the aisles to Swedish pop group ABBA's irresistible songs. It's a delightful piece of filmmaking with a marvelous cast topped by Meryl Streep in one of her smartest and most entertaining performances.

Streep is sensationally good in rendering the whole yarn credible and in performing dramatically moving songs such as "Slipping Through My Fingers," sung to her departing daughter, and "The Winner Takes It All," to a lost love. It's no stretch to think of her performance in Oscar terms, ranking with such previous musical winners as Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

And when Streep teams with Walters and Baranski for dynamic and crowd-pleasing numbers such as "Dancing Queen," "Mamma Mia!" and "Super Trouper," there's not an audience anywhere that won't be smiling.

Can't wait. Opens across the US July 18.
"Mamma Mia!" will pull in money, money, money (Hollywood Reporter via Reuters)