Walking on Sunshine (2014) Annabel Scholey, Greg Wise, Hannah Arterton, Giulio Berruti, Leona Lewis Movie Review

Walking on Sunshine (2014)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Walking on Sunshine (2014)

Walking on the Road to Hell

Taylor (Hannah Arterton) has arrived in Puglia, Italy for a holiday and to spend some time with her sister Maddie (Annabel Scholey) who unbeknown to Taylor has invited their friend Lil (Katy Brand) to stay. What also surprises Taylor is when Maddie tells her than she not only has fallen in love but is getting married in a couple of days. But that is nothing to when she discovers that the man Maddie is about to marry is Raf (Giulio Berruti) who just happens to be the guy that Maddie had a holiday relationship with 3 years earlier

Within 2 minutes of "Walking on Sunshine" starting I knew I was going to struggle as Taylor arrives at customs at the airport and is asked whether she is there on business screams "Holiday" in a cheesy manner and we get the first musical scene full of cheesy over the top synchronized dancing and face pulling. It is cheesier than cheesy and no matter how much I like the song "Holiday" this is painful. And so it goes on with one popular song after another destroyed by cheesy dance routines and face pulling which screams of this being rushed out by those who thought making a musical was easy.

And then there is the storyline which is extremely basic as we have Taylor dealing with her sister falling for her previous holiday love. There is more to it than that but trust me when I say that the storyline in this is little more than a vehicle for various musical numbers. But that leads me to another issue as of course "Walking on Sunshine" is trying to be a movie which fans of "Mamma Mia" might enjoy it but this is weak in comparison and the musical numbers end up just that and don't really do the same job of telling the story like they did in "Mamma Mia". As such at times this feels like someone took a CD of summer songs and threw them in to the movie because they were recognizable.

Even the acting in "Walking on Sunshine" is as painful as all the musical scenes with Greg Wise seeming to have been told to try and act and sing like Pierce Brosnan. In fairness the over the top acting actually fits with the over the top nature of the musical scenes but where as it worked in "Mamma Mia" it just adds to making this summer musical cheesy on multiple levels.

What this all boils down to is that "Walking on Sunshine" not only didn't do it for me but it ended up a painfully cheesy experience which destroyed one great summer song after another.


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