Ten years ago, I won tickets to watch Mamma Mia movie & I brought Mum along as my movie date. I even did a short blog about it here. A decade later, the movie studio has decided to do a sequel after the success of the first movie. Titled Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, the story focuses more on Sophie's story about wanting to fulfil her mother, Donna Sheridan's dream.
This time, I thought it would be a nice idea to bring along Mum & my sister for a mother-daughters bonding session. Prior to the movie, we have a big question lingering in our minds - how would the sequel turn out since all the ABBA's greatest hits have been exhausted in the first film? Let's find out...
The sequel turned out to be a mashup of a prequel in a sequel. Sounds confusing? In short, the movie began with the present day centred around 10 years after Sophie's wedding that didn't happened when she & her beau, Sky decided to put their wedding on hold & went to chase their dreams together - globe-trotting & actually pursuing a career.
In the present day, Sophie can be seen putting up the final touches to the grand reopening of her mother's hotel on a Greek island while juggling a rocky relationship with Sky. That's where we see flashback moments of her mother's younger self weaved in between the plots, telling the audience how Donna's lives intertwined with the 3 lads that led to the birth of Sophie. Switching back & forth between past & present was very well done, I must say.
Cue in the ABBA songs & some dance surely kept the entire movie entertaining. As expected, the song choices were lacklustre as the creators have no choice but to scour through the lesser popular B-side tracks to fit into the plot. And because the B-side materials were limited, some of the songs from the first movie had to be recycled. Yup, it kinda kill the fun.
But I guess the weakest point of the film is the plot itself. While it's nice to see Lily James as the young Donna, this sequel really didn't have much story left to tell apart from dwelling in the past about what actually happened. What's even more frustrating is...there is still no closure to who the real father is to Sophie. This further confirms there isn't really a true purpose to have a sequel, if not for the film company wanting to milk the cash from the new sequel while leveraging on its past popularity.
Casting of the young & present characters were quite spot on, with the new generation casts capable of carrying tunes pretty well. Lily James' singing were beautiful, though some may argue she sounded too sweet to represent Meryl Streep's feisty Donna. I personally enjoyed her singing. Overall, the movie ain't that bad but it left plenty of gaps for people like us who thoroughly enjoyed the fantastic first film & wanted more from this sequel. Rating: 3.8 out of 5
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