Walking On Sunshine

'Did you like Mamma Mia? Then you're going to LOVE this!' You can almost hear the producers of this train-wreck of a musical screaming at you, and they're wrong. So, soooo wrong. Yes, it's got a cute young couple and romantic entanglements and a wedding in a European city, and yes, it's got people singing along to hits of a bygone era (80's pop classics in lieu of Abba this time round), but that's where the similarities end. Any hope for good acting, some comedy, believable romance, anything like that is pretty much abandoned immediately when an Italian passport agent asks Taylor (Hannah Arterton, sister of Gemma, bearable) if she's here for 'Business or holiday?' (which isn't even the question they ask in airports!), and she and the rest of the airport bursts into a rendition of Madonna's song 'Holiday'.

That's about as much effort they've put into seguing between the plot and the karaoke-ized version of songs you love and will now mostly likely hate thanks to this film. There's even less effort put into the actual plot, as Taylor lands in Italy to find out her sister Maddie (Annabel Scholey, cute) is about to get married to Raf (Giulio Berruti), whose character arc goes as far as looking good with his top off. What nobody else realises is that Taylor and Raf used to date THREE YEARS AGO, and that's enough to put the entire wedding into a tailspin of secrets and lies.

Where to begin with what went wrong here? Maybe with that fact every character is either a two-faced liar or profoundly stupid, making nobody likeable and leaving nobody to root for? Or the musical numbers which have the vocals WAY down in the mix since it’s clear nobody can sing all that well, coupled with the dance routines that make even the most basic of flash-mobs look like professional choreographers? Or that the film is so sorely lacking in any kind of originality or inspiration that it’s a wonder the entire sub-genre of musical rom-coms don't unite to bring this travesty to court?

We get that there's counter-programming going on here, with this being released right in the middle of the World Cup, but surely cinema going audience's deserve better than this? In a movie about people who make stupid decisions, making Walking On Sunshine was the biggest stupid decision of them all.