My, My What A Movie!!!

Rating: 10/10 (10 October 2008)

Being such a huge ABBA fan, I went with my WHOLE family - there were 13 of us (plus kids) and we all had a really good time.
What impressed me about the movie is that Phyllida Lloyd is a brilliant director - I guess cause she now knows the musical backwards! She has kept the movie at a lively pace that it's never boring. I really don't get what all the complaints are about. She did a great job! Period.
Meryl is wonderful. Fantastic in her role as Donna. I liked Pierce's singing voice as it lends a kind of seriousness to what he was conveying to Donna in "SOS". And in "When All Is Said And Done" the setting is just so wonderful. Julie Walters is so hilarious...and how come no one talks about Christine Baranski's eye-popping splits in "Does Your Mother Know"! Amazing! The ABBA songs doesn't feel forced at all as some critics foolishly argue. Catherine Johnson's story is simple and I believe the whole team knew that the ABBA songs were going to be the star and the crowd-puller.
Of course I wished some ABBA songs were written in the movie like "One Man, One Woman", "As Good As New" or "If It Wasn't For The Nights"...but then it would make for a 3 hour movie! I won't complain!!! The movie's general release here in Malaysia is Sept 25 but they usually have sneak previews one week earlier. Overall I'd say the crowd was mixed - males and females almost equal in number, mostly over 30s and it was like everyone knew the songs, laughed at the right spots (well, most of the time anyway!), tapped their feet and some were even bobbing their heads! As one local movie reviewer put it: "...15 minutes into the movie, ABBA fans would wish that the cinema seats would disappear and the disco lights would come out!"