Welcome to Magic FM the movie. This girls’-night-out film is so ruthlessly calculated to deliver a-million-percent-feelgood vibes that I half expected fun monitors on the front row to be armed with Boris’s new water cannon and spraying pinot grigio at the audience. Like ‘Mamma Mia!’, it’s a musical where everyone bursts into song (’80s hits) and starts dancing in a way that doesn’t seem to freak out passers-by.
The storyline is simple – why get in the way of songs? – two sisters on holiday in Italy fall in love with the same man. Taylor (Hannah Arterton, younger sister of Gemma) is the sensible, serious one while Maddie (Annabel Scholey) is fun-loving and crap with men. Maddie has just got engaged to fit Italian guy Raf (Giulio Berruti, nice pecs, doesn’t say much). But it turns out Raf and Taylor had a whirlwind romance three years before and still have a thing for each other (The Bangles’ ‘Eternal Flame’). Of course there’s a hen night to get out of the way (Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’) before the at-the-altar-showdown (Cher’s ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’).
Everyone overacts. Comedian Katy Brand gets the best lines as the sisters’ BFF. (‘Exes are like fireworks. They either explode in your face or go all limp.’) Is it fun? Depends where you stand on singing along to The Bangles at the cinema. Personally, I’m prepared to hang on for the ’90s remix with Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’ and Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.