Mamma Mia Reviews Here We Go Again
W atching the original Mamma Mia! in 2008, I had something budgeted an out-of-body experience. Having initially scoffed at everything from the contrived join-the-popular songs plot to Pierce Brosnan's unique vocal stylings, I felt my feathery inner self depart from my dour exterior and start dancing in the aisles. One minute I was a miserable critic; the next, everything had gone pinkish and fluffy. As I said at the time, never before had something so incorrect felt so right.
A decade later, this sequel-prequel hybrid (a surprisingly smart combination) produces similarly head-spinning results. In the 1979 sequences, Lily James plays the young Donna, graduating from Oxford (via a High Schoolhouse Musical-manner rendition of When I Kissed the Instructor) before heading off on an countless holiday wherein she volition endeavour on a pair of dungarees and a trio of handsome suitors. Meanwhile, in the present, Amanda Seyfried's Sophie is striving to fulfil her mother'due south vision (she had a dream!) with the newly renovated Hotel Bella Donna, while wrestling with the prospect of history repeating itself on this idyllic island.
As we flip-bomb through the singalong hi-jinks, Hugh Skinner, Josh Dylan and Jeremy Irvine grow up to become Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård and Pierce Brosnan, while Jessica Keenan Wynn and Alexa Davies evidence dab hands at essaying younger incarnations of dynamic duo Christine Baranski and Julie Walters.
Taking over the directorial reins, Ol Parker (who made Imagine Me & You and the underrated Now Is Adept) delivers a slicker packet than Phyllida Lloyd's tape-breaking original, total of elegant camera moves, snappy choreography and mirrored shots juxtaposing disparate frames, both temporal and spatial. Alongside Parker, the credited writers include Richard Curtis, who may or may not be responsible for such post-Four Weddings zingers as "Be still my beating vagina" and "It's chosen karma and it's pronounced 'Ha!"'
Yet as before, the real pleasure comes from the sublime desperation of hearing your favourite Abba tunes crowbarred into the narrative in increasingly preposterous ways. Occasionally the twists are subtle (the whoopingly affirmative "woh woh woh" of Waterloo briefly becomes a commanding "whoa" – as in "end!" – during a eating place seduction scene). More often they're express joy-out-loud ludicrous (the scene in which Cher calls Andy Garcia'southward Señor Cienfuegos by his first name evokes Ben Elton'due south script for We Will Rock Y'all). Crucially, such creaks announced to exist entirely knowing, encouraging us to laugh with the story, rather than at it – something I'm non entirely sure was truthful of the original phase musical and film.
It helps that the ensemble cast are extremely likable and admirably game; the lyrics to Dancing Queen may insist that "you can dance, you can jive", just the fact that many of the men can do neither of the above doesn't stop them from having the time of their lives anyhow. By contrast, the women are on top class – from Lily James, who could charm the birds from the trees with her song-and-dance skills, to Julie Walters, whose brand of note-perfect concrete comedy (it's all in the expressions and gestures) proves a reliable delight. Meanwhile, Omid Djalili is a scene-stealing hoot as a withering customs and passport control officer (NB: stay to the very cease of the credits).
None of this would mean a affair if Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again didn't also pack an emotional punch, and I feel duty-bound to written report that I came out of the screening an utter wreck. The tears started early, as James and co danced effectually a cameoing Björn Ulvaeus, and then flowed freely as the hits continued, climaxing in a Dunkirk-style flotilla routine complete with a cheeky nod to Titanic, the film that the original Mamma Mia! famously outperformed at the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland box office.
Yet having ever believed that Abba'due south greatest song was a melancholy precious stone from the Inflow LP, it was the spine-tingling reworking of My Honey, My Life that hitting me hardest. I wasn't just crying – I was convulsing with tears, badly trying to stop myself from audibly sobbing. Seriously, the finish of Apocalypse Now proved less traumatic.
Much has changed in the 10 years since Mamma Mia! challenged my ideas of "good" and "bad" film-making. I have certainly mellowed, and mayhap my critical faculties take withered and died. But I just can't imagine how Mamma Mia! Here Nosotros Go Again could exist whatsoever better than it is. I loved it to pieces and I can't wait to go once again!
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/22/mamma-mia-here-we-go-again-review
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