ABBA The Movie
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Movie Reviews of ABBA The Movie
Movie Review: Well done movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Great fun and well done! This film should satisfy any ABBA fan and show others just how great ABBA was in a live performance.Movie Review: it is a must for ABBA lovers!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you like ABBA music that is the movie you might want to see.I enjoyed watching it!Movie Review: ABBA's only movie
Summary: 5 Stars
The plot of the movie is a little silly, but of course, the music is great.Movie Review: Outstanding Live Concert Footage, Interrupted by a Silly Plot
Summary: 4 Stars
"ABBA The Movie" is a difficult film to rate because it is really two movies in one. The first is a documentary of the Swedish pop music group ABBA's early 1977 tour of Australia. The second is a fictionalized story line about an Australian country DJ, who attempts during most the movie to obtain an interview with ABBA. The DJ also devotes a great deal of screen time to interviewing ABBA fans.
The documentary portion of the film contains outstanding live concert footage of ABBA's performances at various venues throughout the country. Photography by the film's director Lasse Halstrom is excellent. I counted 17 live song performances and two additional songs in video format. Granted, most of the filmed performances were not complete songs, but any ABBA live concert footage is extremely rare today. It is available on DVD only in this film and in "ABBA in Concert," which records portions of ABBA's 1979 tour of North America and Europe. If you buy only one of these disks, I recommend "ABBA The Movie." There are more songs on this disk and the camera work here is better than that of the 1979 tour.
The storyline of this film is a distraction and unnecessary. The DJ interviews a seemingly endless number of ABBA fans and after the first two or three, we get the point: Australians are crazy about ABBA. Anyone interested in this film today is obviously focused on the music, so it is somewhat frustrating when the film cuts away twice from ABBA's first live concert, in Sydney, to show the DJ denied entry to the concert. Later, the film cuts away from another live concert to show the DJ conducting fan interviews and attempting to schedule an interview with ABBA.
This film would have been much better had it been constructed along the lines of Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz," which was released at approximately the same time. In "Waltz," Scorsese filmed a complete concert by "The Band" and between musical numbers presented in depth interviews with the performers, not fans. On the other hand, "ABBA" has mostly excerpts from songs and very little is discussed about group members or their music. A snippet of an ABBA press conference early in the film reveals that some people regard Agnetha's (the blond's) "bottom" as the "sexiest" in show business, an assessment that is supported by subsequent concert footage. But little of any real substance is revealed about the Swedish group. In fairness to Mr. Hallstrom, he thought that presenting a feature length film comprised of only concert performances would not hold an audience's interest for two hours and few, if any, would have predicted, at the time the film was made, that the public would be clamoring for live ABBA concert footage nearly 30 years later.
Although the DVD has been released in Europe, Australia and Canada, it has not been released in the US. It is my understanding that the Canadian version of the disk is the only one that will play on US DVD players and is available only in a single disk format. I purchased my DVD from a Canadian based internet marketer.
As stated above the photography in this film is excellent, but the video transfer from film to DVD leaves a lot to be desired. Portions of the video have a grainy quality, even with my DVD player set on progressive scan and using a high definition TV. The audio in both DTS and Dolby 5.1 is wonderful. The DVD offers subtitles in English, Spanish and Portugese. There are no "extras" on this disk. Included with the DVD is an 18 page booklet containing photographs and text giving interesting background on the tour and film.
This DVD stumbles however when it comes to the chapter menu. This film was on cable TV earlier in 2005, and I recorded it on a digital video recorder. Before buying the DVD, I watched this movie on multiple occasions on my DVR and, after the first or second viewing, watched it by fast forwarding through the plot portions and watching only the music. Surprisingly, Universal Music provided no menu on this disk to access only the music. Making the situation even worse, the chapter menu is arbitrarily chopped up into segments that bear no logical relation to different parts of the film. Chapters actually start in the middle of musical numbers, making the chapter menu virtually useless, if you want to watch only the music.
Finally, every time I play my disk, there is a momentary pause in the middle of "Why Did It Have to be Me?" I do not know if this is a defect in my disk or it is a manufacturing problem that is common to all disks.
In summary, the music portion of this DVD rates a strong five stars, but the silly plot and the problems with the disk discussed above, bring this DVD down to a four star production.
Movie Review: A snapshot of a band at its peak
Summary: 4 Stars
ABBA fever was everywhere in Australia from 1975 to 1978. In 1977, a reluctant 'fear of flying' Agentha Faltskog joined the other three members to embark on an Australian tour which covered Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. And yes, I was annoyed that I missed it. I bought the video of this film about 10 years ago, and it is a prized possession. It's a bit corny in parts as they try to weave a silly story throughout, but what I love about it is that it captures 1977 so perfectly, You can almost taste the atmosphere coming from the film. There is some brilliant concert footage including the famouse scenes with terrential rain and poor Frida slipped on stage.
Surprises me that the DVD is being released in USA before anywhere else. Although, there has always been copyright problems with this title in Australia, and my video is from UK. I hope the DVD will have the film in its widescreen aspect and boast a stereo soundtrack, we will see ...
Thousands of people will buy this DVD. It will be a big seller far and wide.