Review of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) by Donald Y — 17 Aug 2018

Not bad, but.. meh. Without going into too much detail (and no spoilers), I went into the theater with relatively high expectations, as I loved the original movie and watched it with much enthusiasm in the theater (way) back in 2008.

After the first 20 minutes or so of "Here We Go Again", I was very honestly, almost considering to leave the movie theater in disappointment. The 'new' cast who plays the younger version of Donna and the 3 men, who she romanced that summer on an island in Greece, looked the part well, but didn't play the part well.

While their singing was more than adequate, their acting was sub-par and at times felt overdone and over the top in effort. And some of the scenes early in the movie felt cringingly cheesy and almost unnecessary, especially the scene with the poor Greek man on the boat who wanted to return to the island to.

. (no spoilers) as well as the band whose singer was the son of the bar (restaurant?) owner. Fortunately though, the original (2008) cast kept my attention, and the flow of the movie improved about halfway in.

There was certainly a great amount of attention and effort put into this movie's music production and choreography which I enjoyed the most. However, I'm not a big fan of Cher, and didn't really feel like she fit in/belong with the ensemble and the story, although it was a relatively short appearance.

Her version of "Fernando" was average at best. The plot could have been so much better and I felt that the story lacked all of the charm contained in the first movie. Overall though, I very much enjoyed the music and liked how the whole story fit together (albeit somewhat clumsily) near the end.

I would certainly watch it again, just for the music alone.