Helio Fortunately I caught on to the moronic plot early on and was able to fast forward through those connecting scenes. Actually I fast forwarded through most of the songs except for a half dozen of their best tunes. The photography was mediocre. It was no Woodstock. The best part was how the group came across as sincere, dedicated likeable performers.

Wizard-8 The idea of a coproduction between Australia and Sweden might sound a little strange, but it happened with this movie. The results suggest why there hasn't been another attempt to date. Whether you are an ABBA fan or not, you'll more likely than not find the movie unsatisfying. Yes, there's plenty of ABBA music, but surprisingly most of it is not played completely, which will likely frustrate fans. Also, the concert sequences are not particularly well directed and edited; the only number that really comes to life is the "Dancing Queen" number (which IS played the entire way through.) What's most annoying about the movie is that while it promises to take a look at the ABBA band members in depth, we learn next to nothing about them. Much of the movie is instead devoted to an incompetent Peter Fonda clone whose ineptness and stupidity become annoying pretty fast. I can only recommend the movie to die hard ABBA fans, and even they will more likely than not find large portions of the movie hard to sit through.

James Hitchcock I am probably the only heterosexual British male of my generation who likes ABBA, or at least who likes them in a straightforward way and not in an ironic, postmodernist spirit of "I know they're naff, but then naff is the new cool!", although I have to confess that in my teenage years, which coincided with their heyday in the seventies, my interest was aroused as much by the good looks of the group's two female members as by their music. So when a film called "ABBA: The Movie" came on British TV recently (as part of Channel 5's "ABBA Night") I just had to watch it.Films made to cash in on the success of pop groups rarely if ever make for great cinema."Spice World" was probably a horrible embarrassment even to the most ardent fan of the Spice Girls (and even more so to the group themselves). The various Beatles films have been praised for their visual style and occasional wit, although I suspect that they will prove a closed book to anyone who is not interested in the Beatles' music. The same applies to "ABBA: The Movie". It deals with ABBA's tour of Australia (a country in which they always enjoyed great popularity) in 1977. It is not, however, a straight documentary, although it probably should have been. Scenes of the band playing concerts in various Australian cities are combined with a feeble plot line about a radio DJ trying to get an interview with them, about which the less said the better. What any ABBA fan will want to watch it for is the music. Anyone who is not an ABBA fan will probably not want to watch it at all.Even ABBA fans may be surprised by some of the music on offer here. Of course, when the film came out the group still had several years of stardom ahead of them and some of what we now think of as their greatest hits, such as "Chiquitita" and "The Winner Takes It All", were still to be written. Even so, the selection of songs may strike some as being slightly eccentric. We get to hear some more obscure offerings such as "When I Kissed the Teacher", "Tiger", the banal "Rock Me" and the shrill and strident "I'm a Marionette", these last two both qualifying for a place on any compilation album of ABBA's greatest misses, but there is no "Knowing Me, Knowing You", "Take A Chance On Me" or "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do I Do", all of which had been written by 1977.Nevertheless, we do get to hear most of ABBA's other great songs from the first half of their career- "Waterloo", "Fernando", "Mamma Mia", "Thank you for the Music", and a number of others. And, more importantly, we get to hear them performed in the original versions, not (as they were in the film version of "Mamma Mia") murdered by the likes of Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, whose ability to kill a song stone dead proves that he is just as deadly an assassin as his best-known character. And for those whose interest in the group is not purely musical I can report that both Agnetha and Frida were at the height of their beauty in 1977 and both spend much of the film wearing their trademark scanty costumes. 6/10

uniqueabba Pure brilliance This group were genius This film shows them at their most professionalI am a fan and I have to say this is one of the most realistic movies about a pop group everI recommend it totally, no bad language, no sex, pure entertainment.All the hits are here from their early to mid career.Agnetha Benny Bjorn and Frida certainly knew how to put on a show.Many rare insights into the working of a pop tour.Take your children to see, get it on DVD and be rest assures the children and your grandparents will all love this movie.