simply dreadful!!!!!!!

Rating: 1/10 (22 December 2008)

Its hard to know where to begin with this film. I avoided it in the cinemas mainly because it looked a bit cheesy and just wasn't sure I would enjoy it. Nevertheless, because this film has been so successful in the UK I decided to watch the DVD. I watched with a group of friends for about 30 minutes. They did not enjoy it and voted to switch it off! I decided to watch myself the next day because I wanted to give it chance. I think the thing that struck me most was how many of the actors could not sing! Chief among them was Pierce Brosnan. He seemed to think his mooing or moaning constituted singing! Was he auditioned for this? Colin Firth and Stellan Skargard were not much better.
Julie Walters also seemed out of her depth with her "vocal talents". Her character also seemed out of place with respect to Meryl Streep and Christine Baransksi in that she did look and feel like she was their friend. Also I found her character quite shrill and annoying. Only Amanda Seyfried and Meryl Steep seemed even come close to an adequate singing voice. The other thing that bothered and amused me in different measure were how the extras seemed to appear out of no where when musical numbers were being sung. I know that it's a convention that this happens in musicals but when the young lovers were singing "Lay all your love on me" on a seemingly empty beach , 25 scantily clad men appeared out of no where to finish of the song! This happened on a number of occasions during the film.
The only things I liked about this film was hearing an old Abba song I hadn't heard in years "Slipping through my fingers" and the scenery of the Greek island.
Don't get me wrong I like musicals when they are done well, for example, Chicago, Moulin Rouge, Grease etc. I just felt that in this case , take away the Abba songs and what do you have? Not much. Clearly, I am in minority since it seems to really have captured the publics' imagination but. I just don't get it"