Watch ABBA: The Movie For Free

Redundant and unnecessary.

Overrated

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Looking back on this movie, for me it is a nostalgia piece. With the exception of Abba of course playing themselves (hey, you wouldn't want them any other way) it's male lead, a failed actor, who's not very favorable at the moment of course, plays a haggard and inept reporter traveling across cities, trying to score an interview with Abba to little avail. Being an Adelaideian, you see little of our small city in the film (be thankful for what you do see) but it brings back memories. I was six when Abba was the thing. They were so big, only one can imagine, how big they would be today. There's hardly a song of theirs I hated, and they wrote a hell of a lot of songs, more than the number of Elvis movies. Hughes galavanting around, always coming up against Abba's bodyguard (Tom Oliver, our shining star in this) is fun to watch, and we share many interviews with Abba fans, we realize this is more than a movie. People were so different then to now. Hey, it might not of been the best movie ever made, but it's the history that makes it as is our famous foursome who are genuine. They don't act. What I liked too, was Hughes fantasizing over our famous female duo, where may'be he has finally scored that interview. That's the burning question, "Will Hughesee ever get that big interview?". It what makes the finale quite gripping if you can believe that. For Abba fans, definitely, or others who like to to stroll down that nostalgic lane.

ABBA the movie tells us the story of Ashley Wallace, a country radio DJ. He is sent by his boss on a mission around Australia to get an interview of the famous pop band. This plot is a pretext to see ABBA perform on stage all along the movie. The live footage is brilliant, you can really see them playing and singing like if you were at their sides. These moments are by far the bests of the movie. The DJ plot on the contrary is either boring or even stressful. Most of the time you can see the improvised interviewer running around chasing the group but only getting a few words from fans or informations and merchandising on that band he doesn't really like to begin with. This makes you enjoy even more the on-stage performances that represent a dreamy break from the hustle and bustle of the big cities, crowds of fans and traffic. Some of the sequences though are original and even funny sometimes with a kitsch touch to it. Definitely a must see if you're a fan but if not, I'd suggest you just watch video clips and live performances. In any case, there's not much to learn from this movie : no voice-over whatsoever and no text providing informations. As the radio boss puts it at the beginning of the movie : «it's not a documentary, it's an event !»

While there may have been the 1977 issue of Abba The Album, one would speculate on what's Abba The Movie all about? The fabulous Swedish four may have had acclaimed success with a cluster of hits to their names but at what cost did it have on their personal lives? The Movie is actually based on the accounts of Abba's Australian tour and even so the concert scenes are excellent for its quite rare to see them performing live and it should be noted that they barely travelled well. The rest of the movie film contains the actual movie footages and interestingly enough, features a then unknown Tom Oliver of Neighbours fame. In the whole, the film is quite good and acceptable for its time and I like the typical seventies scenes of Australia but as times change, what impact does it have more than thirty years later is that it has become terribly dated and sometimes made me cringe a bit and as the saying goes could have been a current affairs programme. 9/10 for the concerts - 6/10 for the movie.

Now that it's out in DVD, the ABBA fans who missed the movie when originally released can delight in seeing their favorite group as they were then. Even though, the band has been disbanded for over 20 years, ABBA was unique for groups of the time, in that they left a fairly large legacy of surprisingly good quality videos of their music. This movie, although trite contains a fascinating video record of one of their most impressive tours. With the introduction of the musical Mamma Mia (based on ABBA songs) on Broadway several years back, which started an ABBA resurgence of sorts, the existence of videos like this one has let another whole generation get hooked on ABBA music. ABBA was an extremely attractive and very talented group which will live on through these videos. The video and sound quality of the DVDs ( I watch on an HD set ) is excellent considering the time period they were recorded. I liked ABBA back then, but never really followed their music closely. Now I'm hooked, and grateful for the video record that exists of " one of the greatest pop groups that ever was" ( from U2)