Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Andy Garcia, Lily James, Celia Imrie, Dominic Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard, Colin Firth, Meryl Streep, Julie Walters, Christine Baranski, Alexa Davies, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Josh Dylan, Cher
Directed by: Ol Parker
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Musical, Comedy, Romance
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) works to reopen the hotel that was her mother's dream while learning more about her past.

Review:

Tim: I wasn't a big fan of 2008's Mamma Mia!. It felt like an underdeveloped musical. It had its moments, but it never felt fully fleshed out. I was a bit surprised that they decided to make a sequel a decade later. There's good news and bad news with that. The good news is that this movie feels very much on par with the first film. Sequels often lose quality, especially after long stretches between installments. So, it's a big positive that this film maintains the quality level of the original. On the downside, the bar was set pretty low to begin with.

I would suspect that fans of the original will feel pretty similar about this movie. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again feels like a worthwhile companion to the original movie. It picks up with the same cast and continues their story. We get a number of musical numbers, the tone and feel of the film is the same.

I actually really enjoyed one aspect of the film- the flashback scenes to Donna's early life. I definitely got a Godfather: Part II vibe to these scenes. It was actually interesting to explore Donna's life in more detail. I'm not sure we discovered anything essential that we didn't know before, but it was fun to see how she met the three men who would later have such an influence on her and her daughter's life. These scenes work so well because of the fantastic performance of Lily James. I didn't sit down expecting this, but James completely stole the show. She channels Meryl Streep and brings energy and life into her character. I thought James gave the best performance of the film. Her scenes were often the best of the entire film. Streep did a great job with her character in the original and James delivers a performance that rivals Streep's. That was the most unexpected surprise of the film.

While James was incredible, it does put a bit of a shadow on the rest of the film. I was especially disappointed with Amanda Seyfried's role. She really doesn't have a lot to do and doesn't seem to bring much energy to the role. Her performance is pretty bland. The sequel really needed to give her character more to do, but it feels like she's continually upstaged by those around her. That might be the preening of Julie Walters and Christine Baranski, it's certainly the more compelling scenes of James, but even the trio of men from the first film- Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgaard felt like they had more to do. Cher shows up at one point and pulls all the attention to her. It felt like Seyfried was an afterthought before her big musical number at the end. It was really quite bizarre. The movie needed more focus. If the point was to show Seyfried and James in different time periods, then some of the other characters needed to be cut. I'm not sure Cher and Andy Garcia were required. The movie would have been better with more focus and more for Seyfried to do. The movie creates some enjoyment from a fairly solid cast, but I can't help but believe the movie suffered some from how many people there were. The flashback scenes increase the headcount, but it doesn't feel like much else was cut to account for them (besides Seyfried).

The music was fine. I didn't love the songs, but the choreography was more often stronger than not. "Waterloo" was fun and it's always entertaining to hear songs like "Mamma Mia" and "Dancing Queen". I thought that aspect of the film was okay, but nothing stunning.

I'm not entirely convinced we needed a Mamma Mia! sequel, but I'm just thankful the movie maintained the same level of quality. Indeed, the flashback scenes with James were oftentimes delightful. I wish I enjoyed these movies more, but this is where we are. I'm not sure Abba has enough worthwhile songs to turn this into a trilogy, so maybe this is where we need to end.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Mamma Mia!, Into the Woods