ABBA-MINATION
‘Mamma Mia’ sequel hits all the wrong notes
“Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” is the name of the movie and boy, you’re telling me.
And it’s what you’ll be telling yourself, quietly, as one corny scene follows another. It’s a movie that has nowhere to go and takes forever to get there.
A tardy sequel to the 2008 hit, it desperately doubles down on everything. You liked the three fathers last time around? And Donna’s two girlfriends? And “Dancing Queen”?
Well, they’re all back, and some in duplicate, as the film switches between the present day and an origin story of how free-spirited Donna found her Greek island and life as a single mother and entrepreneur.
What isn’t reprised is the first film’s bizarrely original spirit.
The new movie starts with Donna’s daughter, Sophie, now running her mother’s inn, rechristened the Bella Donna. (What, Hotel Arsenic was taken?) The business is really a tribute to her mom, who seems to have died since the last movie.
We know this because Meryl Streep’s picture is on the wall, and every time a cast member walks past, they look at it, hang their head and sigh.
But then we go back to 1979, to see the young Donna, now played by Lily James. (What, Mamie Gummer was busy?) She’s a rambunctious free spirit, destined to live life to the fullest.
We know this because she cackles, wears cowboy boots, and when called upon to deliver her college’s valedictory address, bursts into song before leading a parade on a bicycle.
Now it’s my turn to hang my head and sigh.
James has tawny skin and yellow curls — really, she looks gold-plated — but she’s not very charismatic. Nor are the three weedy young boyfriends she’s juggling. (They get better decades later, when they turn into Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard and Colin Firth.)
And Amanda Seyfried is sweet, but little else, as Sophie, a character who spends most of her time looking out at the horizon, as if desperately waiting for someone to rescue her.
Some help arrives in the present-day scenes when Christine Baranski shows up, doing her cougar thing. Meryl Streep returns briefly too, even though the movie’s killed off her character. (You think a little thing like that’s going to stop the world’s greatest actress?)
And, after about an hour and a half, the movie brings in its real secret weapon: Cher, or a remarkably lifelike simulation. She doesn’t have much to do, but at least she gets to sing a song. Hey, why do you think that nice hotel manager was named Fernando, anyway?
But it’s too little, too late, for a movie that’s sometimes sluggish, sometimes manic but never really sure why it’s here.
Abba’s greatest hits were already picked clean for the first film 10 years ago (which is why several of them get dragged on for encores now). None of the characters has anything new to show us. Brosnan mutters his way through another song, badly. Firth disco dances.
There’s no reason for any of this except for the studio, and the band, to make some more money. Well, sorry, guys. You’ve met your Waterloo.