Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
2008’s “Mamma Mia” is what I consider to be the “Fast and Furious” of musicals. It’s cheesy, silly, clichéd, and very campy. However, much like the “Fast and Furious” films, I was happy that it embraces that silliness and wears it like a badge. It can definitely be seen as the type of experience where you’re either going to jump in joy and happiness or cringe in misery and annoyance. For me, I lean a towards the former because of the likable characters and its undeniable charm and heart. With “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again,” a lot of that cheese, campiness, and silliness are still there. However, like I did the first one, I couldn’t help but get into the rhythm and have fun with the characters, and this time around, I’d say there was more of an effort put forth into embedding an emotional heft to it, and to me, that makes it better than the first.
Set well after the first film, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is about to open up her mother Donna’s (Meryl Streep) hotel but must endure through hardships and frustrations if she is to make her mother proud. Meanwhile, we are introduced, in a series of flashbacks, to a younger Donna (Lily James) and we learn along the way how she met Sophie’s three “dads” as well as how she became infatuated with the island of Kalokairi, where she decided to build a hotel.
One of the reasons I feel there’s an irresistible charisma to this film is how every character feels as though they perfectly belong in this environment. Once again we’ve got the likes of Stellan Skarsgård, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth returning as Sophie’s three fathers as well as Christine Baranski and Julie Walters as Donna’s best friends, and all of them once again embrace the campiness and definitely seem to have fun with the movie. But I think the new faces are the ones to be commended, particularly those starring as younger versions of the characters. Lily James perfectly captures the exuberant, energetic, and rebellious nature of Donna, while the actors who portray the younger versions of the fathers are terrifyingly accurate in their portrayals, both in how they look and how they act. In regards to the present-era storyline, Cher surely makes quite the impression as Sophie's grandmother and Andy Garcia, while in a minor role, fits in very nicely as well.
Again, much like the first one, ABBA continues to be one of the main characters of the series and you still can’t resist dancing along with the characters. But this time around, director Ol Parker made sure to incorporate a few extra, lesser-known ABBA numbers and some of them work, others don’t. I’m not really a fan of musicals that sing songs for the sake of singing songs, and there are definitely moments where that annoyance prevails. But for the most part I wasn’t bothered all that much. In fact, you could even say the music wasn’t as much of a heavy-hitter compared to the first one, where the music basically took over the story. The balance between the story and music feels much more polished and easier to digest and invest in.
Overall, “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” is an incredibly silly, yet delightfully engaging summer musical that’ll get you tapping your feet whether you want to or not. While not a cinematic masterpiece nor a riveting summer blockbuster, it definitely has the irresistible charm and quirky campiness that’ll get you in the rhythm from beginning to end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcSMdhfKga4&t=1s&w=585