The critical consensus on "Mamma Mia," which Beehiver Will still hasn't seen even though he keeps talking about going, seems to be is that the film has some major flaws but is still a lot of fun to see -- if you're into movie musicals. Still, there are some pretty feisty defenders of the film out there. Here's a sample call in reaction to my review from a reader named Tina, who from the sounds of it took a small multigenerational army to the multiplex:

We just took about 12 people to see "Mamma Mia" today. You know what, you are so off base with your review, dude ... I don't know what kind of movies you really do like, but I'll tell you, the whole auditorium was clapping. So Pierce doesn't have a voice … but you know what, Meryl Streep's role in that show is phenomenal. My 17 year old daughter loved it, my 91 year old residents loved it, I'm 45 and I loved it ... So you are way off base on this one, dude. You missed the mark, buddy. Maybe you'd better take some people with you and pick their brain before you slaughter a really great movie. Take care. I'd love to hear your singing voice someday. Bye.

Tina: (Or may I call you Mrs. Dude?): If you read to the end of my review, you'll find that I concluded my "Dancing Queen" metaphor with this line: "The movie version might not count as royalty, but any Abba fan will want to take a chance on it anyway." I think that's pretty fair. P.S.: I am in no way Broadway (or even local theater) caliber in terms of my singing voice, but I think that I (and about 200 million other U.S. citizens) could belt it out better than Pierce Brosnan.

By the way, for all you "Mamma Mia" fans out there who can't get "The Winner Takes It All" out of their brains, I ran across a fascinating story in the Chicago Sun-Times last week that speculated on why Abba tunes can become such "earworms" -- the kinds of tunes that burrow into your head and won't give up. One possible reason:

The multitracked harmonies of singers Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstad awaken the part of our brains in which our inner caveman is still enjoying a Paleolithic hootenanny with the rest of his clan.

‘‘If you look at the evolutionary biology of the species and the chemical reactions we have to events in the world, for tens of thousands of years when we as a species heard music we heard groups singing it, not an individual and not an individual standing on a stage,’’ says Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession." ‘‘So the ABBA model of the multiple voices or the Edwin Hawkins Singers singing ‘Oh Happy Day’ is much closer to stimulating these evolutionary echoes of what music really is, fundamentally — closer than, say, Frank Sinatra or Miley Cyrus.’’

In other words, if a caveman encased in ice were to be thawed out, revived, and immediately given a full iPod, he would respond more immediately to ABBA or a gospel choir than, say, free jazz. He might eventually dig Ornette Coleman, too, but the presentation of ‘‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’’ would sound more familiar.

By the way: I'm outta here for a week of vacation, and I'm NOT TAKING MY COMPUTER. Don't worry, I haven't been abducted by members of the Meryl Streep Fan Club.