Reviews for Mamma Mia Here We Go Again
Does this flick point the onset of Too Much ABBA? Of course not. In that location's no such thing as too much ABBA.
Oh, at that place accept always been naysayers, particularly in this country, which was stubbornly resistant to the grouping'southward music in its heyday, back in the 1970s and early '80s. At beginning, with its glitter-bomb phase outfits (a dodge to take advantage of a Swedish taxation law) and its unapologetically danceable music, the group was consigned by many rock-inclined pop critics to the dustbin of disco. Hamlet Vox critic Robert Christgau, writing off ABBA's Greatest Hits album in a 1976 review, said, "the ring'south real tradition is the advertising jingle, and I'yard sure their disinclination to sing like Negroes reassures the Europopuli."
Criticism at that level at present seems perverse. In the intervening years, ABBA has probably sold more than 100-million albums (a lowball estimate). Its songs have been covered by admirers ranging from Portishead to Yngwie Malmsteen. And Mamma Mia!, the 1999 jukebox musical from which this motion picture and its 2008 predecessor were drawn, has been a astounding striking all around the world, especially in the U.South., where it had a xiv-year Broadway run, and the U.K., where it's however doing business in London's West End.
Anyone who's seen the stage evidence will know it'south a dancing-in-the-aisles celebration of ABBA's slap-up nautical chart hits. (Cher, who appears in this movie, recently said she's attended the testify three times and was dancing in the aisles herself.) Oh, there'southward a story, as well—some business about a mom and her daughter and a sunny Greek island. Only that's just a clothesline for the sunny songs.
The first Mamma Mia! pic, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, who also directed the London and New York stage shows, hewed very close to the theatrical narrative. Meryl Streep played the mom, a woman named Donna, who has raised her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) on the gorgeous travel-porn isle of Kalokairi, where Donna is the proprietor of a picturesque inn. When Sophie becomes engaged to a beau named Heaven (Dominic Cooper), she decides to seek out the father she never knew (and Donna has never identified) and invite him to her nuptials. But Information technology turns out there are actually three paternal candidates: a New York architect named Sam (Pierce Brosnan), a London banker named Harry (Colin Firth), and a sailing adventurer named Bill (Stellan Skarsgård). Donna had brief liaisons with each of these men dorsum in her maverick youth, so it'south complicated. Also hanging nearly are Donna'south longtime comic-relief buddies, Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters). Many musical-comedy complications ensue, and in the cease the three skilful-hearted guys decide to share Sophie'due south paternity.
And so is this new flick, Here We Go Again, simply a rehash of the terminal ane? Well, similarities were unavoidable. Since the showtime motion picture hoovered upward ABBA'south most resounding hits, without which no ABBA-based pic would seem quite right, the large numbers get an encore here – then welcome back, "Waterloo," and "Dancing Queen," and you besides, title tune. Just writer-managing director Ol Parker (who scripted The All-time Exotic Marigold Hotel) asked ABBA songmasters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus if he could plumb the group'due south large catalog for new numbers to freshen things up, and they said certain. And so now, scattered amid the returning classics and some great songs making their franchise debut (among them "Knowing Me, Knowing You lot," "One of Us," and "When I Kissed the Teacher"—which ignites a tremendous song-and-trip the light fantastic sequence), are some less widely known tunes like "Angeleyes," "I've Been Waiting for You" and "Andante, Andante," which can stand up proudly among ABBA's all-time efforts.
The story is more than just a reprise, too. It'south told on 2 levels, one of which features the original characters, yet played past Seyfried and Cooper, Brosnan, Firth and Skarsgård, and Baranski and Walters. In this iteration, Donna is dead, Sophie is pregnant and she and Sky are opening a new hotel – an event to which Sophie has once again invited her three dads. She hasn't invited her grandmother (Cher, at total diva wattage, with platinum hair, Hollywood shades and a silver walking stick), just grandma shows up anyway.
On the other level, a separate storyline takes the states back to Donna's youth, with the character now played, with sparkling pizzazz, by Lily James (Cinderella, Baby Driver). Her three immature lovers are Josh Dylan, Jeremy Irvine and Hugh Skinner (who leads her on an all-stops-out romp through "Waterloo" in a Paris eating place, featuring dueling baguettes and a maitre d' dressed, for some reason, as Napoleon). Younger versions of Donna's pals Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn) and Rosie (Alexa Davies) naturally crop up as well, and there are very funny bits past Andy Garcia, as the sultry manager of Sophie'southward new hotel, and Omid Djalili, playing some sort of dockside passport-stamper. Overall, the movie benefits greatly from this injection of new characters and young blood.
However, the Greek isle of Kalokairi presented here is notably different from the 1 we saw in the first moving picture (now it's really the Croatian island of Vis), and the sunday doesn't seem to be shining down on it quite as gloriously. And if I must stretch for complaints I'd say that I wish the pic had concluded with its near gratifying musical number, under a night sky filled with starburst fireworks, instead of continuing on through a feel-extra-good fantasy that will no doubt wring a tear or two from those susceptible. Although…I guess that's okay, really.
Source: https://reason.com/2018/07/20/movie-review-mamma-mia-here-we-go-again/
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