I wanted to love this movie. A friend of mine, a very happy, outgoing, bubbly sort of person, really really LOVED this movie, and talks about it often.

And I think that most musicals require a certain suspension of disbelief. It’s not too common among people I know to break out in song and dance every few hours. And there are many musicals that I really do love, although I first saw the majority of them when I was much younger.

I remember one of my good college friends LOVEDSinging in the Rain, her #1 favorite movie of all time, and I had never seen it. The first time I saw it, I thought it was pretty silly, but it’s grown on me since then.

Another problem was that I was tired yesterday. I made it all the way through the movie without falling asleep, so maybe that’s somewhat of a recommendation. However, I certainly can’t say I loved it.

Maybe I’ll give it another chance sometime when I’m well rested.

This was one of the worst attempts of a musical I have ever seen. I don’t know if it follows that actually play to the tee, but if it does, then I can tell that people who rave about it don’t know what a great musical is. The only saving grace was that the music all came from Abba, which is one of my favorite groups of all time.

It’s about a girl who finds her mother’s diary, and invites three men, who might be her father, to her wedding. Meryl Streep, Colin Firth (I LOVE HIM), and Pierce Bronson are part of the cast to this ill-fated musical, and I must say that I am shocked that they signed on to be in it. The acting was not bad, but they didn’t finish a sentence before they were singing another tune. What’s worse is that their voices were not up to par. I cringed a few times and decided to just fast forward whenever they jumped into song. The plot was campy, and that is a nice way of putting it. Additionally, the movie was way too long for my taste. 90 minutes isn’t a bad number. I’m tired of this movies that want to extend over two hours.

Aside from Abba, the only good thing about the movie was the scenery. It was in Greece, which is where I want to go for my honeymoon. If it weren’t for those two things, I would have just returned it without watching it. Don’t waste your time. If you want to listen to Abba, get their greatest hits cd. If you want to see the Greek isles, get a documentary. If you want to see these fine actors, then go see another movie of theirs. I am trying to save you the pain.

Seeing Streep and Brosnan stretch themselves this way is reason enough to watch, but what I was not prepared for was just how downright funny the film is. Get set for some side-splitters. The Greek chorus is priceless! And the location used for shooting will make your mouth water. My favorite number was “Money, Money, Money.” It’s uplifting, old-school musical all the way. So make a point of watching this for some gloriously good fun.