Musical
I like Musicals, this movie is a musical, kind of.
Feel Good
The movie definitely fits the niche of a "feel good" rainy day vibe.
Rotten Tomatoes 79% Cinemascore: A-
Let me preference this review with a disclaimer; I have never seen Mama Mia! before watching this sequel, film or stage production. Despite this I still was looking forward to seeing Mama Mia! Here We Go Again after reading over the positive reception for the film and that I have a natural soft spot for a good musical. However after finally watching the popular musical, I was disappointed I didn't like it as much as I wanted to. Honestly I found a lot more to dislike then to like in the film as a whole. All I wanted from Mama Mia! was a fun even if forgettable experience but instead I found it's a film broken between its two congruent arcs (at least in length) that fails both as a functional musical and as a story.
Mama Mia! Here We Go Again is as much a prequel as it is a squeal to the first film, flipping back and forth between two main story lines, one of which see Sophie (Seyfried) trying to realize her mothers dream after she passed away, and another that follows her mother Donna (Streep/ James) in her trip through Europe 40 years ago. Both plots are edited in parallel, giving equal weight to each throughout the run time of the picture i.e. Godfather Part II or an episode of Arrow (for the sweatys out there). Perhaps with a better script this would be stroke of genius, however in Here We Go Again it's an unbalanced dish. The events of one plot are only scarcely relevant to the events of the other; when it is its only on a scene by scene basis. In fact, I found as the movie went on there were more contradictions, thematically at least, then connections to the parallel plots as one tells the story of somebody finding her own dream while the other focus's on somebody putting her dreams aside to complete another's. It wouldn't' be a problem if the film treated Sophie and Donna like separate characters but that's clearly not whats perceived by every other character in the film. The end result weakens the overall narrative as the film switches between two plot lines I have very little investment in.
Unfortunately this problem extends to the film as a musical as well. If you're familiar with Mama Mia! then you'll know its a musical crafted around the works of Abba rather then other way around, and while I can't speak for how this relates to the original musical, it defiantly is a weakness of this one. Rather the musical number adding to the narrative at large and lending song to the emotions in the story, each number is only relevant to the period of time when its played. For example a favorite number of mine is "Waterloo" which plays towards the end of the first act of Here We Go Again as its affectionately preformed between Donna and her first love interest Harry (Firth/ Skinner). "Waterloo" is a song about destiny, how we cannot deny the one who is destined for us much like Napoleon was destined to lose in the battle of Waterloo. Harry however is the least relevant of Donna's three love interest and fails to factor back into the plot after missing Donna from taking a ferry (or boat with another destined lover, same same). So much for destiny. This is just one example of many ineptitudes of the musical, its too bad too because Abba songs are catchy as hell.
Mama Mia: Here I Go Again was the film I was least invested in this year for the reasons I listed above. The seeds of a compelling story are here but it lacked the competency to tell it. In the end all that's left are few good tunes.
