ABBA The Movie

Unashamed and supremely slick commercial for the group, maintaining a gentle air of self-parody while at the same time being a celebration of all the various apparatuses which make a merchandising phenomenon like ABBA possible. The narrative, without which the film would mostly consist of footage of the band on stage, follows ABBA through an Australian tour pursued by a Sydney deejay. If the idea's spread a bit thin, it's occasionally handled with a humour and panache worthy of Dick Lester's Beatles' movies or ABBA's own Phil Spector/Brian Wilson- inspired studio craftsmanship.