SOBBA
Movie Review – Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again
Review by Paul Preston
Damn you, movie. You’re supposed to be saccharin-sweet and silly as hell and not mean a thing. But dammit, at the end, if you didn’t bring all the feels… You’ve overstepped your boundaries, movie!
There’s only been one Mamma Mia! movie but already you know what you can expect from every entry into the franchise – exotic locations (Greece), gobs of sun, scores of hot people, ABBA songs and silly, loose romantic comedy shenanigans. The fact that the sequel, a word which in itself exudes feelings like “cash grab” and “lack of ideas” actually delivers MORE than what’s promised is a welcome surprise.
Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again begins on a dour note. Donna, the matriarch of the unusual Sheridan family, which also includes her daughter Sophie and Sophie’s three dads, has died. Sophie is carrying on, re-opening her mother’s old home, but there’s trouble in her marriage and two of her three dads are MIA for the grand re-opening. Immediately this felt like the wrong move to me because how are we going to squeeze all the hot people and goofy ABBA tunes into a dead mom story? Mamma Mia! movies double down on cheese and over-the-top fun, but writer/director Ol Parker somehow gives the poignant moments, especially the entire story finale, real emotion and artful delivery. The risk pays off.
It doesn’t hurt that the cast here and in the previous film are all great actors jumping into the fun full-on. Christine Baranski especially shines this time around and in one scene she meets the Sheridan villa’s new manager (Andy Garcia) and her immediate reaction to his handsomeness is the line of the year (methinks it had to come from British comedy legend Richard Curtis, who co-wrote the story with Parker and Catherine Johnson). Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgärd and Colin Firth have the time of their lives (as instructed by the lyrics of “Dancing Queen”), although they’ve never been on-point vocally. Luckily, their comic timing and dexterity with an otherwise melodramatic or cornball line sees them through. Amanda Seyfried succeeds at holding the film together now that the plot requires it and…oh yeah…CHER shows up. I think she’s playing a character, but it doesn’t matter. She holds court until the credits roll.
So far, I’ve only mentioned half the plot. The other half revolves around young Donna and how she met the men who would become Donna’s dads. Who wouldn’t want to see the promiscuous adventures of a girl in the ‘70s sleeping around? Here’s another premise that Here We Go Again flips on its expectations and the whole thing plays our resoundingly sweet. That’s mostly due to another star turn from Lily James, who has what Rachel McAdams came onto the scene with – utter watchability and an contagious ease at displaying joy. Jessica Keenan Wynn and Alexa Davies effectively capture the naughty and playful parts of young Baranski and Julie Walters.
The biggest challenge for Here We Go Again is to use different ABBA songs than were previously used in the original film. They do repeat three songs, and they’re welcome – “Super Trouper”, “Dancing Queen” and “Mamma Mia!”. There are shades of some of the previous songs, too, used reflectively. There are a few times when the method used to crowbar a song into the movie is to just have the characters say, “Let’s sing a song!”, but there are other times when they actually wrote situations that more successfully use the music than this film’s predecessor. “Knowing Me Knowing You”, for one, that song helps lay out Donna’s feelings after one of her early trysts. One of the big crowd-screamed-in-joy moments involves another hit not yet heard – “Fernando”, and Cher delivers it after a wonderfully unapologetic cornball moment of utter elation.
When I saw the stage version of Mamma Mia!, unfortunately for the script, my favorite part was the bows where the actors just do a medley of the songs and jump around the theater with everyone clapping along. The first film had a similar medley in the end credits, but it felt more like a show. Here, it feels more like the characters last hurrah and even that moment meant something.
I cried. Damn you, movie.
Directed by: Ol Parker
Release Date: July 20, 2018
Run Time: 114 Minutes
Rated: PG-13
Country: UK/USA
Distributor: Universal Pictures
