So I Confronted ABBA Head On...

...or at least that music which predates Ace of Base (whom I liked more).

I was at the local première screening of the Hollywood adaptation of that stage show, Mamma Mia! at 1U's GSC. (BTW, the stage production is coming to Malaysia at the end of the year). I had my niggling doubts about watching this... but I thought might as well: I need to see and hear Brosnan, Firth and Skarsgård sing. Thanks to Nuffnang, by the way, for the pair of tickets.

(Yes, I did manage to find someone with a higher tolerance for song and dance movies than yours truly). Got to 1 Utama before 8 p.m., and I decided to check in at GSC to see if the Nuffnang booth was up (it wasn't - yet), so went to McDs and caught up with uncle (who for one, took the effort to leave the office when the sun was still out) for a bit before going back to the new wing again. After a detour, I finally signed in and got the tickets and was sort of in a line when the seating light came on and everyone rushed in like they were being chased by them bulls in Pamplona. (I was just rushing cos I didn't want to end up in the very front). We spent the 15-20 minutes before the movie bitching about a lot of things, among them the camera flashes that don't seem to end. Oy. Was I glad when the room dimmed and the movie came on.

Gist of the story is... oh, go Google it, I can't be arsed to go through it.

Watching this, I can't help but think "Cougars Gone Wild" - single mother raising a kid, running her own business... the mother's hiao girlfriends - or else you could put it down as "girl power", ala the Spice Girls.

The singing was okay lah - I came into this movie KNOWING that the former Mr Bond already cannot sing, so expectations wasn't that high to begin with. I was just a little disappointed that Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård (who, for once, is not wearing prosthetics) didn't have more solos (they were singing a few lines each towards the end). But not enough for me to download the soundtrack or anything like that.

My only thing with the plot is when the mother also didn't know which one of the three guys was the father of her daughter and all three decided to claim a third of the girl, which I guess is a sweet gesture on their part, but did anyone ever thought of doing a paternity test just to answer that question once and for all? Sheesh. (Yes lah, I know it's just a movie - I'm just saying...)

The thing I liked about the movie was that compared to Across the Universe, the story wasn't too outlandish (though there aren't that many actual ABBA songs included). But I'm a Beatles fan (purposely wore a Beatles tee shirt, some more) far longer than I probably ever will be of ABBA, so I'm just gonna stop there.

Movie finished pretty early (before 11 p.m.), which is not bad. Got home to watch the last 20 minutes of Criminal Minds.

PS. Look out for the cameo roles of the male halves of ABBA and stick around for the credits.

PPS. Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson are the executive producers.