Mama Mia Here We Go Again My My How Can I Resist You Mamma Mia

Electric Waterloo: (L to R) Young Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn), Immature Donna (Lily James) and Young Rosie (Alexa Davies) experience the beat from the tambourine, oh yes, in Mamma Mia! Here Nosotros Go Again. Jonathan Prime/Universal Pictures hide caption

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Jonathan Prime/Universal Pictures

Electric Waterloo: (50 to R) Young Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn), Young Donna (Lily James) and Immature Rosie (Alexa Davies) feel the shell from the tambourine, oh yeah, in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

Jonathan Prime/Universal Pictures

OK, look. I don't want to waste matter your time. It's hot, it'due south muggy and the news is an ever-widening gyre of flaming airborne chili-festival Porta Potties. So how well-nigh we forgo a review that seeks to accelerate any cool, objective argument on the relative cinematic worth of Mamma Mia! Here Nosotros Become Once again, the sequel to the 2008 picture show adaption of the longest-running jukebox musical in Broadway history? How near, in the interest of efficiency, I only answer the questions I know you to have about the film — because I had them, as well — in order of importance?

1. Does Pierce Brosnan sing in this? Tell me Pierce Brosnan doesn't sing in this.

He ... does.

Only. Only! They've learned from history.

(For the male heterosexuals among yous: In Mamma Mia!, Brosnan played Sam, one of three possible fathers of Sophie, Amanda Seyfried'south character. And he had this one solo which was ... rough. He sang it — bellowed it, actually — at the peak of his head-voice, merely with a throaty rasp, and in this defiantly odd Southern-drawl-ish accent. Imagine Huckleberry Hound belting out 'Thunder Road' and yous begin to arroyo the heed-bending Lovecraftian horror of information technology.)

This time out, he reprises the aforementioned vocal he and so mercilessly pummeled in the get-go film, but much more gently, more briefly and in a melancholy central, which rather neatly serves to cauterize the wound and continue the infection from spreading to the residuum of the pic.

And in fairness, permit'southward just notation that the song in question, in both films, is 'S.O.South.' — literally a cry for help. Come up on, they had to know what they were doing, in that location.

two. The trailer says Meryl's character is dead, but she's on the poster. So what gives — just flashbacks from the first pic?

Adjacent question.

Look, why won't y--

I get it, information technology's a perfectly off-white thing to inquire — only you lot don't really want to know the answer. You think you do, just yous don't. The picture show works improve if y'all become into it hovering in a country of Heisenbergian dubiety, Streep-wise. Next question.

iii. Do I need to re-lookout man Mamma Mia! before going in?

You lot mean, to refresh your memory of that film'southward massively complex globe-building, Byzantine inter-character relationships and densely layered mythology? Uh, yep, no. Actually no.

In fact, it'south probably best to go in fresh-ish, because this film plays fast and loose with facts and chronology clearly established in Mamma Mia!, in ways that may subtly disconcert the nerdiest among you.

These variances turn out to exist all for the good, however. You may recall how, in the 2008 film, when Streep's graphic symbol Donna first catches a glimpse of the three heart-anile men who, years before, may have fathered her daughter — Brosnan's Sam, Stellan Skarsgård'southward Bill and Colin Firth's Harry — she briefly imagines them as they were in their youth. Which is to say, given the blessed cheesiness of the whole cinematic endeavor: a middle-anile Firth in a "punk" wig, eyeliner and studded leather collar, a middle-aged Skarsgård in a "hippie" wig and flowered shirt and a middle-anile Brosnan in a "biker" wig, complete with headband and specially woeful mustache-situation.

Given that Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again concerns itself with how those youthful couplings played out, we must force ourselves to briefly entertain the chilling notion of a whole freaking pic with Brosnan, Skarsgård and Firth assaying versions of their younger selves — and then, thankfully, dispel it into the ether of What-Might-Take-Been. Consider it a mercy that the filmmakers instead shunted the entire janky-wig budget into hiring three wan twinks to play Young Sam (Jeremy Irvine), Immature Bill (Josh Dylan) and Young Harry (Hugh Skinner), respectively. Yes, several details of how Donna met these men differ markedly from the history we got in Mamma Mia!, but the three young performers possess markedly better voices than their older selves, so call it a internet win.

Another example: Cher is in this affair, playing the late Donna'due south female parent, and Sophie'due south grandmother. That's no secret; it's in the trailer. (As a thought experiment, try to imagine how much coin they must have thrown at Cher to portray Donna's mom, given that she is just three years older than Streep. Become ahead, attempt — you will find the puny human brain insufficient to the task.)

What may not be clear is that her screentime clocks in at just over sixteen minutes. Also, according to a passage of Streep dialogue in the 2008 film ("Somebody upwardly there [point to the heavens] has got it in for me. I bet it'south my mother.") Cher'south appearance at the picture show's climax should logically inspire, among the other characters, a proficient bargain more than existential dread, if non screaming terror, than information technology does here.

Look, it's no secret that Cher is a supernatural force. Just if nosotros accept that line of dialogue as Mamma Mia! canon, she may in truth exist a Vampyr. The script is non forthcoming, but what other conclusion is possible?

She does get a number to do, though, and it's actually pretty great. And so, you know: undead, schmundead — at the end of the day it's Cher singing in a exquisitely tailored pantsuit, and so information technology's a win.

iv. Mamma Mia! already trotted out 16 of the 19 songs on ABBA Gilt , the all-time-of album that contains their most-love hits. What songs are left to build another whole movie around?

Ah. That's the affair.

Rest assured that those three orphaned songs from ABBA Gold get their time in the sun, at concluding.

Too know that of the 18 songs on the Mamma Mia! Here We Get Again soundtrack, six — fully one-third — are repeats from the first motion-picture show.

Just they're no mere retreads.

Thank you to director Ol Parker, every last one of the returning songs merits an empirically improved presentation than it garnered in the 2008 movie: Bigger, splashier, more than involved, more joyous, and, where appropriate (and it's usually appropriate, considering: ABBA), infused with a get-for-broke, Busby Berkeley sensibility. And when sung by the preternaturally charismatic Lily James equally Young Donna, delivered with a range of emotion, and a technical skill, that kind of, faintly, dazzles.

I of these returning songs, it really should not surprise y'all, is "Dancing Queen." (Making an ABBA musical without "Dancing Queen" would exist like making a Batman show without Batman. I mean, sure, y'all can exercise it — but why?)

The product of "Dancing Queen" that sits like a colorful, foolishly cheesy precious stone in the center of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again borrows the base elements of the 2008 film'due south mounting of the same song — and transforms them, alchemically, into ABBA aureate. It'south ecstatically shot, charmingly choreographed and sunnily performed. Hear my prediction: Once this film makes its mode onto streaming services, clips of this number will live in hundreds of thousands of browser windows, waiting to be tabbed over to, and clicked upon, as dependable, desperately needed mid-afternoon mood-lifters.

(Here might be a good fourth dimension to recall that the original Broadway production of Mamma Mia! opened in New York City on October 11, 2001 — timing that may at least partially explicate why it found such a hungrily eager reception. I am here to tell you lot: The sight of attractive people singing and dancing to the music of ABBA retains its sheer potency, these many years later, as pop-culture serotonin.)

So, aye: Those three overdue songs from ABBA Gilt? And those 6 songs from Mamma Mia! newly mounted and reinterpreted? They're not the problem.

Information technology's the others. One-half of the songs in the movie are comparatively niggling-known, C-listing ABBA B-sides — with the agreement that the word "comparatively" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that phrase, given that what nosotros're comparing them to are songs that accept infiltrated the very textile of modern culture through radio, elevators and dentist offices.

Fifty-fifty if you belong to the subset of the population who knows all the words to "When I Kissed The Teacher," "Angel Eyes," or real snoozers similar "I Wonder (Divergence)" and "I've Been Waiting For You lot," y'all accept to admit that they lack the uncanny, insinuating ability of ABBA's chart-toppers. Sure, they're exquisitely constructed, deceptively simple feats of close-harmony power popular, but when and then many numbers lack the cultural inescapability of, say, "Fernando," information technology leaves extended stretches of the film ripe for pee-breaks.

5. Is Christine Baranski an enduring, inviolate gift to the world, the final and irrevocable proof of a chivalrous college power that seeks only what is best for humanity?

Yes.

6. How come, when it came time to make a sequel, they didn't just Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead this thing, and re-tell the original picture's story from the point of view of those thankless, long-suffering (and hot-looking) members of the hotel staff, whom the principal characters kept pointedly ignoring?

Excellent question. That would have been an interesting approach, because how poorly the get-go film treated the locals of Kalokairi. (They come off meliorate in the sequel — a few are fifty-fifty allowed to speak, imagine that, and this time out the main characters are pointedly shown expressing appreciation for all the staff does to help.)

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Mamma Mia'south whole sudsy, conflict-gratis Who is my Begetter? storyline but wasn't compelling plenty to return to.

Non that the plot of the sequel is The Brothers Karamazov or anything — basically, Sophie wants to throw a political party and complications ensue, while we witness flashbacks of her mother's whirlwind courtships. Merely at least there'southward more to chew on than there was in the first moving picture, which, when yous break it down, was actually simply a particularly tuneful, lord's day-splashed episode of Maury.

7. What wine pairs best with this film?

Something cheap and common cold and fruit-forward, definitely. Nil even remotely complex.

Empathize going in: This is the kind of movie for which a not-insignificant portion of your fellow opening weekend audience members will have pre-gamed. And goodness knows I'k not advising you to popular the handbag out of the cheapest box of wine you can find and smuggle it into the theater with yous.

... But if you do, make information technology a rosé.

Or expect — even that'due south too snooty. See if you can still find a box that's simply labelled "Blush."

eight. Blush. Got information technology. That reminds me: Just how basic is this film?

Oh, who cares? Actually. Why are you so eager to go and slap a snide characterization like "basic" on this thing? Whom are you trying to impress?

It'south got (generally) cracking songs, sung past (generally) people who tin can sing, and a story that evaporates like breath on a windowpane. The scenery's gorgeous, as is the cast, and it'south got Cher. Why do you need information technology to be anything more than that? Why must it exist uppercase-1000 Good? Why tin't you lot just bask, on a sweltering summer twenty-four hour period, something that's simply majuscule-F Fun?

(... That said.)

(... No aye okay it'south super basic. Alkaline. pH14. Cinematic Drano, basically.)

ix.When should I pee then I don't miss Cher's big number?

If you dash out when, during the climactic political party, Seyfried, Baranski and Julie Walters Who Is Non Repeat Non Judi Dench Even Though She'southward Rocking Dench's Hairstyle So Your Temporary Confusion Is PERFECTLY UNDERSTANDABLE launch into the soporific ballad "I've Been Waiting For You lot," you should be good to go.

(That correct in that location? Is some Service Journalism at its finest. News you lot tin can use. Y'all are welcome.)

ten.What should I exercise if the screening I attend isn't filled with women and gay men who are day-drunk on blush wine?

In that highly unlikely consequence, immediately and calmly brand your mode to the nearest get out, which — remember — may exist behind yous.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/19/627983158/abba-silver-mamma-mia-here-we-go-again

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