Review of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) by John M — 07 Dec 2018

The jukebox musical returns. The next chapter in the Mamma Mia story, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is trying to reopen the Hotel Bella Donna. As the day of the grand reopening approaches, she learns more about the past of her recently passed mother (Meryl Streep as played by Lily James).

Speaking as someone who vehemently hated the first movie, I can't say that I was looking forward to this. There were just too many women shrieking throughout the entire movie for me to form any sort of connection.

Yes, I can admit that it wasn't for me, but I can only watch and review movies for myself. These past ten years, my opinion on musicals has changed drastically, so I did want to at the very least give this a fair shot.

I still don't think that this is for me, but I did not have a miserable time watching this. Now I was concerned at the beginning, because I have to say that this got off to a pretty rocky start. It just feels very High School Musical when it opens, and that can either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you are.

After two numbers, I think that it finds its footing. Specifically with the Waterloo number, that is when it starts feeling more like a natural musical instead of being so forced. One issue I had with this is that most of the biggest ABBA songs were already used in the first movie, so this is almost like the B-side of the record.

You can only get away with repeating the biggest of the showstoppers, like Dancing Queen or the title of the movie. I'm not the world's biggest ABBA fan, so really, other than those two, the only songs I was able to place was Waterloo and Fernando.

I think that the biggest thing this sequel has going for it is that you can tell that every single one of the actors is having a great time. It ends up being infectious, and it allows for the audience to be able to jump on at any point.

The choreography is mostly serviceable, and there is always a bit of showmanship that comes with putting together musical like this together. I'm probably never going to watch this again, but hey, if ABBA and musicals are your thing, you should knock yourself out.