Tuesday 24 July 2018

Film: 'Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again'

Well, what can one say? If it didn't quite come up to my hopes and expectations it was only by the slenderest of margins. The reasons why it was so, I think, was that despite this sequel/prequel boasting the wry verbal dexterity of Richard ('Four Weddings') Curtis who here is co-screenplay writer as well as co-story creator, it does try to fit an awful lot of story in. (Too much?). 

The young Donna (Meryl Streep's character in MM1.) is played by Lily James. We see her showing how she met each of the three possible fathers of her child, bedding each of them in turn. All the while in this flashback/fast forward scenario, the grown-up baby played, as in the original, by Amanda Seyfried, is moaning the absence of her now deceased mother from the party she's holding marking the christening of her own baby (husband,  Dominic Cooper once again). The story does attempt to give plausibility to the unlikely, though I did find it getting in the way of the songs, and it was the songs more than anything else which was why I'd wanted so much to see the film in the first place - as it was, presumably, also for just about everyone else. I didn't find the 'fault' of being overloaded so much in the first film, with the consequence that the songs there showed up in relief with greater ease. Of course it has to be the songs which carry the whole project - and what songs!

I acquired all the ABBA albums at the time they were released and so I was familiar with all the songs chosen for both films, a few of which here make a re-appearance despite having featured in the original, and it's always good to re-hear them no matter how many times. I did like the inclusion of less familiar numbers which hadn't been released as singles - in this new film we get the lovely 'Andante, andante' just as in the first film we had the marvellously evocative 'Our Last Summer', which always gets me to the verge of blubbing as I can readily associate it with my own 'discovery' of Paris in the early 1980s. (These two songs both appear on the 'Super Trouper' album, consecutively, I think.) 

Each of the younger versions of Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard (all present here to reprise their roles, of course) have their own songs, as do the younger Julie Walters and Christine Baranski characters.
Apart from the 'regular' cast (including a cameo appearance for a devastatingly beautiful song by Meryl Streep right near the end) there's Andy Garcia and - as you all know - one Cherilyn Sarkisian. (I was also pleased to see small roles for Celia Imrie and Omid Djalili).

The choreography is tight and the visual staging of the numbers, with their delivery, are perfection itself. I couldn't stop my legs from jumping to the beat, and I'm sure my heartbeat was dead-on synchronised too! Glorious stuff!

This is only Ol Parker's fourth feature film as director, his earlier efforts having failed to make significant impact. He was also co-writer of both 'Marigold Hotel' films. He does a good job in this film but I did find it ever so slightly more leaden than the first, which was directed by Phyllida Lloyd who'd made that one light and frothy almost right the way through (well, other than a couple of more serious interludes to provide 'shade' to the 'light'). Maybe it was due to this new one having a more explanatory story spelt out - though I think that for a musical we hardly expect realism and rationality down the nth degree.

Every few years comes along a film which I so enjoy that I pay good money to see it again in a cinema just a few days later. I did that for 'Mamma Mia 1', and the last time I did so was for 'Les Mis' in 2013. I will be seeing this one again, no doubt, though I'm not sure I'll be rushing back to buy another ticket so soon as I did before.

I rated the original film with an '8'. Ask me again in a few weeks time but to this one I'm going to give a slightly more qualified..............7.5. (Still wonderful, note!)

(IMDb.................7.3 / Rotten Tomatoes.........6.3 Boo hiss!)


18 comments:

  1. I absolutely loved the first Mamma Mia, it's my 'go to' happy film. I must have watched it more than ten times but never in the cinema (missed it). Like you, I know all the songs. I will make sure that I see this one in the cinema!
    PS Les Mis is one of my favourites too.
    PPS I think your Julie, is Walters rather than...
    Great review, thank you.

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    1. Thanks for pointing out the 'Christie/Walters' howler, N.R. Now corrected.
      Yes, I've seen the first 'Mamma' about as many times as you, but the first coupla times on the big screen. I've got it on old-style video (in wide-screen format, of course) and wouldn't dream of parting with it or chucking it away.
      I hope you get the chance to see this new one in the cinema, as it's intended to be seen. I'm positive you won't regret it.

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  2. I will go again and maybe sooner rather than later. Glad you enjoyed it.

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    1. There's not much on here next week so may take the oppo to go again. Here we go.....

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  3. Anyone would think that you are an aging homosexual the way you talk Raymondo xxx

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    1. How DARE you particularly refer to me as 'ageing', JayGee, as it's something every one of us is subject to doing. I prefer to be addressed as 'maturely distinguished', which sums me up perfectly - just like Winnie, though without the farting (not a problem for me as yet!) :-)

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  4. It's Cher! And, if only for a moment, Meryl! Of course I'm seeing it!

    And I don't even like ABBA.

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    1. (I skipped over your last sentence above, Bob).

      You're going to have to wait a long time into the film for both appearances - longer and shorter for Meryl - but, boy, is it worth it! YESSSSSS!!!

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  5. Great to read! I had been interested but now I'll make a point of it.

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    1. For anyone who likes at least one of Cher and ABBA (preferably both!) it's compulsory viewing, Mitch. You'll have fun.

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  6. Hi Ray, I've already seen it twice. As you say the music keeps the feet tapping. I hope I didn't annoy other cinema goers. Nobody complained anyway. A dozen around me were about to leave halfway through the end credits. Good that I was there to advise them to remain in their places and see the continuation - the super joke at the real end. People have had a pop at Cher. But I thought the Fernando duet was a great high point, then came that great line when the handsome Fernando introduces his brother to Julie Walters and her friend. I hope his wife is dead. This kind of humour is great in English but falls flat in German, as in the first showing I saw, when the audience remained solidly unmoved. I'll need to see it a third time to 'get' all the jokes.
    It's that kind of film. It's a real Super Troupper!

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    1. Hi there, G.M. I'd heard that one MUST wait till the very end of the closing credits - and aren't there a lot of them? - but over 95% of the audience didn't, presumably 'cos they didn't know. When the final clincher did eventually come I was left wondering if it had really been worth waiting for, but at least I know now.

      Cher's singing could hardly have been better. It's still so strong and clear, something I really relished, both for 'Fernando' and for 'Super Trouper'. I've just read that she's got an album coming out entirely of ABBA songs with a volume 2 as a possibility. This excites me as I'd have thought she might be the 'kind' of artiste who'd look down her (reconstructed?) nose at ABBA - but I've got no evidence she'd do so.

      I also have to say that Andy Garcia (an unexpected singer!) looked hot in his 'Daddy' beard, the very same one he wore for the recent 'Book Club'.

      I say above that I felt that this film tried to cram too much in. I think they could have dispensed with some of the younger Julie Walters and Christine Baranski characters' dialogues (on top of already having to undergo the tediousness of the three younger males!) - and I did find the elder Walters gaucheness in moving about and bumping into things just on the verge of getting tiresome, as though straining for laughs, which we also saw in MM1, though there it just about passed muster.

      I know what you mean when talking of how humour fails to translate into other languages - I lived in Germany for 3 years where it wasn't easy to find English films in that language and which hadn't been (badly) dubbed into German. Even where the humour is visual rather than verbal it doesn't carry over much of the time. It''s so dull when an entire audience sits there po-faced when you're inclined to crease up with amusement.

      As next week the only new film we're getting is the latest 'Mission Impossible' I'll probably see this MM2 again while it's still on the biggest screens. But for you, do enjoy your THIRD time!

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  7. I am the only person left on the planet who has not seen this movie, and I loved the first one! I am hoping to get there this weekend...until then, every single time I read or hear the phrase Mamma Mia I start humming.

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    1. You won't be disappointed, Elle C. I hope you go early enough so that you have time to go and see it again. Most think this one is still better than the first. Despite my disagreeing, it's only by such a small distance as makes no difference. If this had been the first I've no doubt I would have been just as bowled over as I was by the actual original. Go - and have fun!

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    1. Now reinstated, JayGee - with (sort of) explanation.

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  9. I returned for a second viewing of this film and upped my original 7.5 to an 8. On second viewing there is so much more to notice and the sense of sinking into an old yet somehow new friendship with the songs.

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    1. I never got round to seeing it on the cinema-screen for a second time, which I'm starting to regret - a little. However, it's still on some smaller screens around here though it's going to be hard to find time in coming week. Having seen the original on the TV screen twice, following two cinema visits, that one still holds up well despite its reduced dimensions so I trust this one will too. I've got to see it again somehow, specially since you're saying there's more to take notice of.

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