Ray surprised me by announcing that he wanted to go to the movies this afternoon. Don't get me wrong ... he loves movies, but he tends to prefer to watch them in the quiet of our own home. He said he either wanted to see Mamma Mia! or The Mummy. Because of the timing, we ended up seeing both of them, though, I would have been happy either way.

Sophie is about to marry her boyfriend Skye, but she doesn't want to do that until she really knows who she is. In order for that to happen, she needs to know who her father is. That is trickier than one would think. Her mother Donna (Meryl Streep) had a non-traditional youth. Besides being the lead in t a fun girl-power group in the 1970's she also had one period of fun when the love of her life (Sam, played by Pierce Brosnan) left their beautiful Greek island to marry someone else. Donna drowned herself in other guys, mainly Harry and Bill (played by Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård). When Sophie arrived, it left Donna with a bit of a mystery.

In the time since, Donna has built up a nice holiday retreat on a tiny Greek island. She has been struggling to keep it running on her own with only the help of local villagers and Sophie. Now, everyone is devoting their time to setting up the island to celebrate the nuptuals of Sophie and Skye. To help with the wedding, Donna's friends (hysterically played by Chrstine Baransky and Julie Waters) come to be the supportive aunts.

The movie starts off feeling a little rushed as the audience races through a series of scenes and songs, but the movie settles down into a more comfortable pace as the movie progresses. Those familiar with the songs of ABBA will enjoy the results, and the story is pretty fun. It is a bit thin and requires a bit of an acceptance of disbelief, but most fairy tales do. That is really what this movie (an the stage production it was based upon) is. It was very funny in moments, and the singing is actually much stronger than I expected it to be considering the actors. Anyone who has seen a lot of Bollywood will find this to be of the same format.

One really interesting thing that I found is that the villagers took on the role of the traditional Greek chorus from ancient drama. In a way, it is just as awkward as in the ancient format, but it also fits nicely as well. It just is not all that realistic.

It was really cool to see how the songs of ABBA, which any gay guy loves, could be crafted into such a really cool story.