'Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again' Is More of the Same Thing -- And That's Fine

I like ABBA, and thus, I also liked Mamma Mia!, the 2008 film adaptation of the jukebox musical of the same name, which originally opened in West End.   It was an enjoyable movie, and it got Oscar buzz back then, but I never thought of it as the kind of film that incites clamors for a sequel.  Apparently, I was wrong.  A decade later, here we are, with Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

As a follow-up movie, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is a sequel and a prequel rolled into one (similar to how The Godfather Part II is).  It contains two storylines.  The first one, which is probably set five years after the original movie, follows Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) as she carries on the legacy of her mother Donna (Meryl Streep), who passed away a year earlier.  By her side, she has Sam (Pierce Brosnan), one of her fathers and Donna’s widower, as well as Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters), her late mother’s best friends and bandmates.  But their presence seems to be not enough to prevent her from feeling blue and anxious while dealing with one frustration after another as she oversees the grand reopening of the hotel Villa Donna – from a long-distance spat with her lover Sky (Dominic Cooper) to her two other fathers Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) being unable to make it to the grand reopening.

Meanwhile, the second storyline is set in 1979 and follows a young Donna (Lily James), fresh from graduating from Oxford, and eager to see the world and find her place in it.  It shows the particular episode in her life mentioned in the first movie where she got to meet and share brief, love affairs with Harry (Hugh Skinner), Bill (Josh Dylan), and Sam (Jeremy Irvine) at separate moments in a span of days; and how she decided to settle in the Greek island Kalokairi.

The two storylines then take turns unfolding in order to draw parallels between the respective circumstances of mother and daughter.

Unfortunately, if you are big on continuity, you will be disappointed by this film.  If you go and check again the details revealed in the first movie (particularly, in the “Honey, Honey” scene), you will find that they are completely inconsistent with the events showed by the flashback storyline for young Donna.  It’s really a shame that the screenwriters didn’t make sure that the two movies would fit, especially when the effort required for it is relatively minimal.

But continuity errors notwithstanding, the movie is still as enjoyable as its predecessor.  For most of its runtime, it put a grin of my face.  I had a decent amount of genuine, hearty laughs as well.  Besides, while watching it, I couldn’t remember what was first revealed in the original movie anyway, and thus, was unaware of any bothersome inconsistencies.  It was only when I proceeded to do some verifying afterwards that I learned of the botched continuity.

Actually, the only thing that I found nitpicky was the casting of Cher as Donna’s mother (not for the 1979 storyline, mind you, but the present one).  Cher is just three years older than Meryl Streep.  Those two as mother and daughter broke my suspension of disbelief.  It’s weird.  Weirder still is that Andy Garcia plays her love interest, who could also be Donna’s possible father.  Garcia is six years younger than Streep, and nine years younger than Cher.

On the other hand, at the opposite side of the spectrum, the casting for young Tanya and Rosie is uncannily perfect.  Jessica Keenan Wynn and Alexa Davies really look like the respective younger versions of Christine Baranski and Julie Walters.  Lily James as a young Donna is also some inspired casting.

Anyway, what I like about the cast in general is that everyone is seemingly having a blast in this film, and sharing endearing chemistries with one another.  This is most apparent in the ending, where everyone involved in the two storylines participate in a “Super Trouper” production number – the young and old versions of the characters interacting.

All in all, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is more of the same thing of the first movie.  It’s not great.  It’s flawed and dumb and silly.  But it’s still fun for what it is.  And, more importantly, it has heart.