Review of ABBA: The Movie (1977) by Allan C — 30 Apr 2016

Before becoming a respected director of films like "My Life as a Dog" or "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," Lasse Hallström was directing ABBA music videos and made this super corny time capsule about an ABBA tour in Australia, with the threadbare narrative being a local DJ wanting to interview the Swedish superstars.

There's really not a narrative and this is more of a concert film with interstitial scenes of the band traveling between venues or the DJ trying to talk to the band. As a concert film, it's well made, though nowhere close to being up there with something like "Stop Making Sense.

" I do count myself as a ABBA fan (and if you claim you don't like ABBA, you are a LAIR!), but I think my favorite part of the film was the super awful 1970s disco era outfits. This film has more medallions on hairy chests than you can shake a stick at! I think my favorite song was a bizarre music video sequence for "Name of the Game," where the female band members fawn over the DJ in a dream sequence and the male members are bizarrely in an old west setting playing cards in a saloon.

Overall, it's a pretty inconsequential film, but a pretty entertaining good time as well.