Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Writers: Catherine Johnson
Producers: Judy Cramer and Gary Goetzman Starring: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth, Julie Walters, Stellan Skarsgard, Dominic Cooper and Christine Baranski
Music: Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and ABBA
Film Studios: Universal Pictures and Playtone
Release Date: June 30th 2008 (UK)
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Budget: $52 Million
Synopsis: The story of a bride-to-be trying to find her real father told
using hit songs by the popular ‘70’s group ABBA.
Review: This musical tribute to the
highly successful band ‘ABBA’ isn’t one I remember for good reason.
The film starts with a cliché I don’t who
my father is and doesn’t get much better from there (sad times). This brings
Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard into the film and to be
honest anyone couldof played those roles and it still wouldn’t of improved the
movie.
Now more on the cast, firstly to Pierce
Brosnan who is one of big problems of the movie, he sounds like a drunk Irishman
on a night out with friends when he sings as his singing voice is not great to
say the least. Now to Julie Walters who throughout the movie just seems to be
drunk and does random acts including crying and singing on the roof of a
cottage (not a good site). Amanda Seyfried does her best and actually does
quite well in her role but this does not save the movie (not by a long shot).
Meryl Streep isn’t at her best in this movie, while the rest of the cast is
forgettable.
One of the highlights of the film is how
it was shot with some nice shots and some good scenery that makes the movie
look nice.
Now to the songs and the singing, to be
honest I think ABBA were thinking ‘what have we done?’ because most of the cast
can’t sing properly and just seemed like they were on karaoke after a few to
many drinks (alcoholic drinks that is).
The script is pretty cliché and doesn’t
have much memorable about it other than some badly sung songs and some random
acts with people crying and dancing.
Overall this is not a good movie,
regardless of the all-star cast and being very successful, by the end of the
movie I was laughing at how bad the movie really was. I recommend to not watching
this movie unless you can deal with two hours of drunken karaoke.
Rating: *
