Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again is the sequel/prequel to Mamma Mia!, which was the cinematic adaptation of a popular jukebox Broadway musical featuring popular ABBA songs. It was released a decade after the original. Even though I like musicals and ABBA, I have no fondness for jukebox musicals because the stories are usually a flimsy excuse to showcase the music. I knew that I would never watch either film in theaters and would only watch at home when both were readily accessible to stream at no extra cost so I could watch the movies in one sitting. Over a year ago, the stars aligned, and all my required conditions existed so I decided to check out the franchise. This review is the second of two reviews.
Usually sequels are worse than the original, and prequels can be a money grab disaster, but I preferred Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again over Mamma Mia! You need to watch the original in order to be successfully emotionally sucker punched at the beginning of the sequel. The psychological manipulation is magnificently expert as we feel sentimental about the last film just because they ripped the rug out from under us. In addition, my relationship prediction came true so I felt as if the sequel saw me and itself in a clear light. The movie also had me going when it explained why certain characters could not appear. I cynically and mistakenly thought that some of the actors came to their senses and decided that a lapse in judgment would not happen twice.
Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again is once again about Sophie, the bride in the original, who decides to renovate and reopen the villa hotel, but she is facing a lot of seemingly insurmountable personal and professional obstacles at a turning point in her life. The sequel. As she moves forward to prepare for the opening and her future, the movie flashes back to how her mother, Donna, decided to stay in Greece and got pregnant with Sophie. The prequel. I was surprised that I actually enjoyed seeing the past considering it could have felt repetitive seeing this movie so soon after the original and hearing so much about those early days, but it retroactively gave credibility to the first movie and made the events seem less outlandish.
Lily James deserves most of the credit for making Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again work. As the young Donna, she has to walk a difficult tightrope as a young, sexually adventurous, likeable woman without incurring judgment or turning it into a serious melodrama. James is able to keep the proceedings light and hopeful. She is the image of young adventure although the script does lay it on a little thick—she is a hot, Oxford valedictorian and carefree. OK. James is an unrecognizable thespian who has a diverse resume as the love interest in Baby Driver, the secretary in Darkest Hour and the sister in Little Woods. She also makes a vocal cameo in Sorry to Bother You. In a weird way, cynical casting directors may have been thinking that they needed an even younger, hotter actor than Amanda Seyfried, to attract audiences, but they are more than surface and excellent actors though James has had better luck than Seyfried, who usually has to play the sexy girl.
Even though I watched both movies in quick succession, I initially had problems linking the younger actors with the older ones because I never had a firm grasp of the male characters other than the iconic actors playing them. Multitasking while watching Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again finally hurt me, but because the younger actors were so good at embodying their older counterparts, I was able to catch up. Though I am unfamiliar with any of them, they deserve credit for not going too far in the direction of comedic, absurd impersonation while successfully depicting such recognizable actors as Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard. James and the younger cast are also better singers so
As Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again moved back to the present, the proceedings got a little ridiculous, which is fair considering the original, and felt like fan fiction as the plot elaborately revised history. Attentive viewers of Mamma Mia! will remember that Donna’s mom disowned her. Well, her mom is totally cool and Cher, who is only a little over three years older than Meryl Streep, who plays Donna. When she is revealed, you will immediately associate her to a character that only appears in the sequel, but if that character is as emotionally important to the story as the sequel would like us to believe, should have been in the original. As ludicrous as all of the aforementioned was, I will happily sign a waiver because in the realm of musical and movie magic logic, it makes sense because Cher in a musical and her perfectly named love interest makes sense in this world. Also apparently Cher chose the actor cast as her love interest so yes, if you get to be Cher levels of famous, you can get any man that you want, which means that parts of the world are fair. It is oddly comforting.
Naturally Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again ends on a high note. All the depressing set ups are rapidly brushed aside. I actually bought the emotional connection between the present Sophie’s predicament and Donna’s past so the story is definitely stronger than the first. I was briefly disturbed at the idea that Sophie lives too much in her mother’s footsteps and needs to find her own life. Donna was full of adventure, and as exotic as Greece maybe, I never forgot that it is Sophie’s hometown so she has literally never gone anywhere. We really needed Sophie to have a Greek accent even though it is a lot to ask Seyfried to do. I still feel as if Sophie needs a therapist, and my brief relief that the movie cosigned my assessment was yanked away in the denouement that tied up all loose threads, but I was too charmed to mind.
If you liked or like me, simply tolerated Mamma Mia!, you may love Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again. Random black horses, impromptu girl groups and inheriting property may sound like surreal Rube Goldbergian elements, but somehow everything comes together because the filmmakers are expert at manipulating its audiences’ emotions. I did not even like these characters, and they had me feeling wistful over their lives! While it seems like a lot to require anyone to watch the original, which is a mess outside of the star-studded cast, you need to if you want to enjoy the far superior prequel/sequel. It is a better musical, but the real draw is the cast. Maybe I suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, and it is actually dreadful, but I enjoyed it. Oddly enough, the director of the first film also directed The Iron Lady, and the writer made a wildly popular musical whereas the writer and director of this film is Ol Parker. Who? Exactly. Still Parker wins at striking the right balance without recklessly abandoning quality once he got a perfect cast.
