Mama Mia: Here We Go Again
You've got to love how Mama Mia had the title of its own sequel right there in its originating song's lyrics for decades! We already knew that Benny, Bjorn and (sometimes) Stig were masters of the pop hook but who knew they were clairvoyant too! And, yes, this is exactly the sort of film that deserves to be reviewed with as many exclamation marks as possible! Though, to spare everyone's sanity, I'll do my best to refrain from doing just that...
Mama Mia: Here We Go Again is slightly better than its predecessor - which, much to my horror, apparently came out a decade ago! - but this being a Mama Mia film that also means it's slightly worse. As this hilarious, classic review from Mark Kermode proves, Mama Mia was always about totally shattering any preconceived notions of good taste and quality; where bad became good and dumb became brilliant. From Pierce Brosnan's laugh-out-loud bad but highly spirited singing of S.O.S to Meryl Streep over-dramatizing even the most innocuous Abba songs, Mama Mia was a cheese-encrusted, amped-up, sugary, wonderfully terrible delight, all based around some of the greatest pop songs ever written. The sequel largely recaptures all of that but with some of its excesses toned down (Pierce barely sings and Meryl is all but entirely absent!) and with an unironically wonderful lead performance by the gorgeous, vivacious and effortlessly charismatic Lily James - who can really sing, to boot - it's oddly not quite as much fun as its predecessor. Whatever, though, if you loved Mama Mia even a tenth as much as I did, you'd be nuts to skip its almost-as-good-bad sequel!
The plot, for those who care about such things, is largely fairly irrelevant but here goes... The film picks up some five years after the last film and it has been one year since - gasp! - the death of Streep's Donna and her beloved daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried still doing a wonderful, if slightly more sombre job as the relative straightwoman in all this madness and again boasting by far one of the best voices in the cast), is gearing up for the grand reopening of her mother's hotel. At the same time, we flash back to Donna's early days and how she landed up living on this idyllic Greek island with a baby sired by one of three men.
That's right, even though the dual plots are largely just there to hang the beautiful scenery, great songs, laugh-out-loud jokes and apparently endless supply of camp lunacy, it's not so irrelevant as to escape notice that it is modeled, almost beat for beat, on the Godfather Part II! How audacious is that? Sure, the actual plot details are diametrically opposed but the way it parallels the journeys of mother and daughter here is almost exactly the same as the way Francis Ford Coppola tells the stories of Vito and Michael Corleone! You know, I take it back, this might just be even madder than the first film. And so much for easing up on the exclamation marks!
The unlikely named, Ol Parker, takes over from Phyllida Loyd in the director's chair and original screenwriter, Catherine Johnson, has been joined by Parker and none other than the undisputed king of British romantic comedies (and the man responsible for one of the past decade's most overlooked masterpieces, About Time) Richard Curtis. And yet, despite even greater self-awareness and more intentionally-intentional (as opposed to intentionally-unintentional - there's no other way to describe it) comedy, Mama Mia: Here We Go Again is mostly more of the same.
We have the same ludicrously good cast largely hamming and camping it up to brilliant effect - it's still hard to decide whether Colin Firth or Christine Baranski are having more fun and stealing the show more - over a story that is as unabashedly goofy as it is romantic, set against some spectacularly beautiful scenery and (generally better performed) classic pop songs by arguably the best pure-pop band ever. Admittedly, after having ransacked most of Abba Gold the first time around, they do have to rely a bit more on some of Abba's deeper cuts, as well as reprises of showstoppers like Super Trouper, Mama Mia, and the band's masterpiece, Dancing Queen, but this just proves that though you can't beat the hits, Abba was more than just their best-known songs.
The one major change here, then, is Lily James as the younger Donna. While the present-day cast all mesh together perfectly, with none totally outshining the rest, James is such a magnetic screen presence and so note-perfect at somehow capturing the essence of Streep's Donna without ever doing an impression of a younger Meryl Streep, that she entirely overshadows the rest of her flashback co-stars. The young actors who play her three suitors are all solidly good and the actresses playing young versions of Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn) and Rosie (Alexa Davies) are perfect stand-ins for Christine Baranski and Julie Waters, respectively, but, man, does Lily James own every inch of the screen. She's been great in stuff like Baby Driver and the Exception in the past but who knew it would take a Mama Mia sequel to show off just how outstanding she really is?
Lily James is so great, in fact, that I can almost recommend Mama Mia: Here We Go Again even to those who didn't like the first film. Only "almost", though. This is still the sequel to Mama Mia and if you weren't won over by the guilt-free guilty pleasures the first time around, it's rather unlikely that Here We Go Again will change your mind. If you liked the first one, though, you will almost certainly like this one. Plus, it couldn't have come at a better time. Whether you're sickened by national and international politics; struggling with the (Southern hemisphere) winter cold or just desperately need a break from the grind of your daily life, Mama Mia: Here We Go Again is the perfect antidote. It really is a terrific, shamelessly romanticized holiday/ vacation for the mind. I've seen much better films this year, but none of them can claim that.
And, no, I'm not providing a rating. How do you rate something that is both deserving of 10-stars (OK, 9-stars) and 1-star at the exact same time?
The plot, for those who care about such things, is largely fairly irrelevant but here goes... The film picks up some five years after the last film and it has been one year since - gasp! - the death of Streep's Donna and her beloved daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried still doing a wonderful, if slightly more sombre job as the relative straightwoman in all this madness and again boasting by far one of the best voices in the cast), is gearing up for the grand reopening of her mother's hotel. At the same time, we flash back to Donna's early days and how she landed up living on this idyllic Greek island with a baby sired by one of three men.
That's right, even though the dual plots are largely just there to hang the beautiful scenery, great songs, laugh-out-loud jokes and apparently endless supply of camp lunacy, it's not so irrelevant as to escape notice that it is modeled, almost beat for beat, on the Godfather Part II! How audacious is that? Sure, the actual plot details are diametrically opposed but the way it parallels the journeys of mother and daughter here is almost exactly the same as the way Francis Ford Coppola tells the stories of Vito and Michael Corleone! You know, I take it back, this might just be even madder than the first film. And so much for easing up on the exclamation marks!
The unlikely named, Ol Parker, takes over from Phyllida Loyd in the director's chair and original screenwriter, Catherine Johnson, has been joined by Parker and none other than the undisputed king of British romantic comedies (and the man responsible for one of the past decade's most overlooked masterpieces, About Time) Richard Curtis. And yet, despite even greater self-awareness and more intentionally-intentional (as opposed to intentionally-unintentional - there's no other way to describe it) comedy, Mama Mia: Here We Go Again is mostly more of the same.
We have the same ludicrously good cast largely hamming and camping it up to brilliant effect - it's still hard to decide whether Colin Firth or Christine Baranski are having more fun and stealing the show more - over a story that is as unabashedly goofy as it is romantic, set against some spectacularly beautiful scenery and (generally better performed) classic pop songs by arguably the best pure-pop band ever. Admittedly, after having ransacked most of Abba Gold the first time around, they do have to rely a bit more on some of Abba's deeper cuts, as well as reprises of showstoppers like Super Trouper, Mama Mia, and the band's masterpiece, Dancing Queen, but this just proves that though you can't beat the hits, Abba was more than just their best-known songs.
The one major change here, then, is Lily James as the younger Donna. While the present-day cast all mesh together perfectly, with none totally outshining the rest, James is such a magnetic screen presence and so note-perfect at somehow capturing the essence of Streep's Donna without ever doing an impression of a younger Meryl Streep, that she entirely overshadows the rest of her flashback co-stars. The young actors who play her three suitors are all solidly good and the actresses playing young versions of Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn) and Rosie (Alexa Davies) are perfect stand-ins for Christine Baranski and Julie Waters, respectively, but, man, does Lily James own every inch of the screen. She's been great in stuff like Baby Driver and the Exception in the past but who knew it would take a Mama Mia sequel to show off just how outstanding she really is?
Lily James is so great, in fact, that I can almost recommend Mama Mia: Here We Go Again even to those who didn't like the first film. Only "almost", though. This is still the sequel to Mama Mia and if you weren't won over by the guilt-free guilty pleasures the first time around, it's rather unlikely that Here We Go Again will change your mind. If you liked the first one, though, you will almost certainly like this one. Plus, it couldn't have come at a better time. Whether you're sickened by national and international politics; struggling with the (Southern hemisphere) winter cold or just desperately need a break from the grind of your daily life, Mama Mia: Here We Go Again is the perfect antidote. It really is a terrific, shamelessly romanticized holiday/ vacation for the mind. I've seen much better films this year, but none of them can claim that.
And, no, I'm not providing a rating. How do you rate something that is both deserving of 10-stars (OK, 9-stars) and 1-star at the exact same time?
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