That deafening "ch-ching!" sound you can hear from every HMV and Zavvi in the land: that's the sound of the tills baying as Mamma Mia: The Movie shifts unfeasible numbers of DVD units – 1,669,084 copies on its first day! Which means, as Benny and Björn would put it: money, money, money.

This stunning commercial success is a testament to female spending clout. Here is the lethally powerful demographic – so long neglected and patronised by the business – which is putting Mamma Mia! at the top of the cinematic hit parade and, moreover, making Abba's iconic status even more awesomely impregnable than ever.

My colleague Kira Cochrane cheerfully noted that its box-office triumph is a massive rebuke "to the critics – many of them male – who described it as 'dull', 'grotesque' and 'having all the fizz of flat champagne'."

Ahem. That, erm, could mean me. I hated this movie. And the only crumb of comfort I can take away from Kira's throwaway remark is that at least the term "middle-aged" wasn't appended to "male" as it usually is – but I guess in the context of Mamma Mia's mighty fanbase, "middle-aged" cannot comfortably be used in the usual pejorative sense.

There's no doubt about it, though. Millions of people do seem to love it. I suspected, and continue to suspect, some tongue-in-upper-middlebrow- cheek going on with all this praise in the papers. But, in a remarkable roundup of pro-Mamma-Mia opinion in the Guardian earlier this week, writer Julie Bindel came right out with it. "It made me happy for the first time ever," she said.

All I can say is: grrrrrrrrrrrr. I am more determined than ever to lead the extremist Male Grump Backlash against Mamma Mia!. As everyone explodes joyfully and life-affirmingly out of the cinema, dancing and singing and hugging, I am the bloke grimacing and growling in the foyer and clutching my box-set of The Wire: Complete First Season, and wondering if I've got time to nip home and watch a repeated edition of Top Gear on Dave.

I love Abba as much as anyone else, but Mamma Mia: The Movie is a thin, pallid, pathetic, gutless, infantilised film – far, far, far inferior to High School Musical 3, which now looks like Citizen Kane in comparison.

Despite my Y chromosome, I actually enjoyed Sex and the City: The Movie. I got it. I think I really did. I understood all the escapism and irresistible girliness, but however silly and far-fetched that film was, I felt that Sarah Jessica Parker was playing a real human being with real problems, real intelligence and a real sense of humour. But the characters in Mamma Mia! are unreal, castrated, hysterectomised robots. They give me the creeps. I have seen Ingmar Bergman films with more of a feelgood factor.

And what is really depressing is the number of people who point to the box-office numbers as if that settles the matter. I can only say: yes, it's commercially successful. Like Jeffrey Archer novels. It's at times like these I envy literary critics who don't get people saying to them: "Stop droning on about Zadie Smith – it's Sophie Kinsella who's commercially successful!" The box-office charts are every week dominated by films which have been panned in the papers. Mamma Mia!: The Movie is basically the extreme example.

Well, there are some movies which are just bulletproof. James Cameron's Titanic faced an army of critical naysayers. They sank. The film sailed on. My illustrious predecessor at this newspaper, Richard Roud, is said to have written a review of The Sound Of Music which consisted of one word: "No". The public, like Molly Bloom, said Yes, yes, yes and most of posterity has joined in. So, as for Mamma Mia!, well, the history book on the shelf, is always … you know how it goes.

Maybe a massive tide of critical opinion will turn against me on the subject of this headache-inducing film. Maybe. Until then – grrrrrr.