Written By: Carole Bayley
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Production Companies: Playtone, Littlestar Productions and Legendary Pictures
Director: Ol Parker
Producers: Judy Craymer and Gary Goetzman
Scriptwriter: Ol Parker
Main Cast: Christine Baranski, Pierce Brosnan, Dominic Cooper, Colin Firth, Andy García, Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters, Cher and Meryl Streep
Released: July 20 2018
Running Time: 114 Minutes
Certificate: PG
We waited a long time, ten years in fact, for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Was it worth the wait? After watching the film – I still can’t say!
It was a complete mixture of pure genius and pure ridiculousness.
The setting was supposed to be a Greek island, but filming actually took place at Croatia. The film regularly flips from past tense to future tense featuring Donna’s earlier years and now Sophie’s present life. It is a real feel-good, happy, singy-songy, predictable weak plot which tells a story mainly from Sophie’s perspective. It is almost a mirror of her mother’s story in the original Mamma Mia! film from 2008, which I am certain we all remember.
This recreation of the original story has Sophie Sheridan wanting to re-open her deceased mother’s (Donna) dilapidated Greek Taverna, and invites all her mother’s old friends to the reopening. Lily James, who played Sophie, was a new name to me. Quite a few of the cast were unknown to me, but there were big names in there too. Amongst them were Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Meryl Streep, Andy Garcia, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth, who all had great supporting roles to play, and some very funny dialogue and amusing singing techniques in some cases too. The headliner was Cher, who sang Fernando brilliantly, but wearing a white wig – why?
The film had some absolutely brilliant one-liners and a fair amount of feeling, as well as featuring many amazing ABBA songs, including When I Kissed The Teacher, Waterloo, I Have A Dream, Dancing Queen, and of course Mamma Mia!
The females of our species – young, old and our children and grandchildren – went in our droves to see the long-awaited sequel. We laughed, we cried, we sang, we came out smiling.
But for me, it was the silliest, most predictable cheesiest film ever, and I probably laughed in a lot of the wrong places for the wrong reasons.
It is a ‘Marmite’ film – you either love it, or you hate it.
Overall Rating: 5/10 – Average
