Theater to Film Troubles

Rating: 4/10 (17 December 2008)

This adaptation is getting the full brunt of my annoyance with films that were once musicals yet don't hire theatrical actors. It's a totally different style of acting, particularly with musicals where you need to sing and dance and be aware of your whole body every second of the song. I say sing but really they ridiculously lip-synch and dance, another annoyance. If actors and musicians can do it every night on stage why can't a film actor do it for a few scenes a few times a day! Stagger the filming so no one is singing too much at once, know what your doing physically so it's only a couple takes. I'd rather see little cutting bloopers than the weird mouth movements and missed dance steps of fake singing! This is a romantic comedy cast and what looks like random Greek locals who accidentally stumbled into a musical and tried to make the best of it. I'm blaming the director for the uncontrolled mess they made of it, because I'm blaming him also for the choppy cutting between pretty Greek locations and crappy CGI backgrounds- again, plan ahead in your filming!
Other than several tiny points which drive me crazy this is just the fun, silly musical it advertises itself to be and on which people based their recommendation to me. Good for a light evening or weekend afternoon viewing. Make sure you like ABBA first, this is a full-fledged musical.