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If you loved the first “Mamma Mia!” movie back in 2008, well, “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” offers even more—and even less.

The sequel (which is also a prequel) features a bigger cast, a longer running time, extra subplots and additional romantic entanglements. But it’s emptier than its predecessor and has even lower stakes. It’s less entertaining, and for all its frantic energy, it manages to go absolutely nowhere.

Once again inspired by the music of ABBA and set on a picturesque Greek island, the second “Mamma Mia!” is the lightest piece of Swedish pastry with the sweetest chunk of baklava on the side. And while that may sound delicious, it’s likely to give you a toothache (as well as a headache).

At one point, during a particularly clunky musical number, I wrote in my notes: “I am so uncomfortable right now.” But while the goofy imperfection of this song-and-dance extravaganza is partially the point—and theoretically, a source of its charm—it also grows repetitive and wearying pretty quickly.

No single moment reaches the infectious joy of Meryl Streep writhing around in a barn in overalls performing the title song in the original film, or the emotional depth of her singing “The Winner Takes It All” to Pierce Brosnan . Along those lines, if you’re looking forward to seeing Streep show off her playful, musical side again, you’re going to be disappointed. Despite her prominent presence in the movie’s marketing materials, she’s barely in it.

That’s because Streep’s free-spirited Donna has died, we learn at the film’s start, but her presence is felt everywhere in weepy ways. Her daughter, Sophie ( Amanda Seyfried ), is re-opening the inn her mom ran—now christened the Hotel Bella Donna—on the same idyllic (and fictional) Greek island of Kalokairi where the first film took place. Writer-director Ol Parker (whose relevant experience includes writing those “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” movies) jumps back and forth in time between Sophie nervously putting the finishing touches on the big party she’s planning and the story of how her mother originally ended up on this remote slab of land in the Aegean Sea—and became pregnant with Sophie in the late 1970s without being entirely sure of who the father was.

Lily James plays young Donna as a firecracker flower child—a friendly mess of wild, blonde curls and high, platform boots. (James’ sunny presence is one of the film’s consistent bright spots.) We meet the younger version of her best friends and jumpsuit-clad backup singers, Tanya ( Jessica Keenan Wynn , doing a dead-on impression of Christine Baranski ) and Rosie ( Alexa Davies , standing in for Julie Walters ). And we see her flirt and fall for the three guys she has giddy flings with the summer after college graduation.

First, there’s the skittish Harry ( Hugh Skinner ), who tries to charm her with his halting French in Paris. Next comes the sexy Swede Bill ( Josh Dylan ), who woos her on the boat that carries her out to the island. Finally, there’s aspiring architect Sam ( Jeremy Irvine ), who’s already vacationing on Kalokairi when she arrives. They will grow up to be Colin Firth , Stellan Skarsgard and Brosnan, respectively, and they will be forced into singing ABBA songs that clearly make them miserable.

Ah yes, the ABBA songs. They provided the confectionery connective tissue for the smash-hit stage musical and the original movie. This time, the ‘70s Swedish supergroup’s tunes that are the most rapturous are also replays from the first go-round: a flotilla of fishermen singing and prancing to “Dancing Queen,” or the splashy finale uniting the whole cast for “Super Trouper.” Much of the soundtrack consists of lesser-known songs, and the uninspired way those numbers are staged and choreographed rarely allows them to soar.

Once again, though, these actors are such pros that they can’t help but make the most of their meager material. Baranski and Walters in particular have crackling chemistry again. The brief moments in which the supremely overqualified Firth, Skarsgard and Brosnan pal around with each other as Sophie’s three dads made me long to see them together in something else. Anything else. A documentary in which they have lunch on the porch under sunny Greek skies, even.

And then Cher shows up. Now, it would seem impossible for this superstar goddess ever to be restrained. But as Sophie’s frequently absent grandmother, Cher seems weirdly reined in. Again, it’s the awkwardness of the choreography: She just sort of stands there, singing “Fernando,” before stiffly walking down a flight of stairs to greet the person to whom she’s singing. (As the hotel’s caretaker, Andy Garcia conveniently plays a character named Fernando, which is an amusing bit.)

But if you’re down for watching A-list stars belt out insanely catchy, 40-year-old pop tunes in a shimmering setting, and you’re willing to throw yourself headlong into the idea of love’s transformative power, and you just need a mindless summer escape of your own, you might just thoroughly enjoy watching “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.” Don’t think, and pass the ouzo.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)

Rated PG-13 for some suggestive material.

120 minutes

Meryl Streep as Donna Sheridan

Lily James as Young Donna Sheridan

Amanda Seyfried as Sophie Sheridan

Pierce Brosnan as Sam Carmichael

Colin Firth as Harry Bright

Stellan Skarsgård as Bill Anderson

Dominic Cooper as Sky

Julie Walters as Rosie Mulligan

Christine Baranski as Tanya Chesham-Leigh

Andy García as Fernando

Cher as Ruby Sheridan

Writer (based on the original musical by)

• Catherine Johnson

Writer (originally conceived by)

• Judy Craymer

Writer (story by)

• Richard Curtis

Cinematographer

• Robert D. Yeoman
• Peter Lambert

Composer (music by)

• Benny Andersson
• Björn Ulvaeus
• Anne Dudley

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again review – full of hits and emotion

This slick sequel delivers sharp one-liners, joyously contrived plot twists and an emotional punch that left our critic reeling…

W atching the original Mamma Mia! in 2008 , I had something approaching an out-of-body experience. Having initially scoffed at everything from the contrived join-the-pop 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 pink and fluffy. As I said at the time, never before had something so wrong 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 School Musical -style rendition of When I Kissed the Teacher) before heading off on an endless holiday wherein she will try 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’s 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-flop 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 prove 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 Good ) delivers a slicker package than Phyllida Lloyd’s record-breaking original, full 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 called karma and it’s pronounced ‘ Ha! ”’

Yet as before, the real pleasure comes from the sublime agony 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 “stop!” – during a restaurant seduction scene). More often they’re laugh-out-loud ludicrous (the scene in which Cher calls Andy Garcia’s Señor Cienfuegos by his first name evokes Ben Elton’s script for We Will Rock You ). Crucially, such creaks appear to be entirely knowing, encouraging us to laugh with the story, rather than at it – something I’m not entirely sure was true of the original stage 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”, but the fact that many of the men can do neither of the above doesn’t stop them from having the time of their lives anyway. By contrast, the women are on top form – 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 physical 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 end of the credits).

None of this would mean a thing if Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again didn’t also pack an emotional punch, and I feel duty-bound to report that I came out of the screening an utter wreck. The tears started early, as James and co danced around a cameoing Björn Ulvaeus, 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 UK box office .

Yet having always believed that Abba’s greatest song was a melancholy gem from the Arrival LP, it was the spine-tingling reworking of My Love, My Life that hit me hardest. I wasn’t just crying – I was convulsing with tears, desperately trying to stop myself from audibly sobbing. Seriously, the end 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 perhaps my critical faculties have withered and died. But I simply can’t imagine how Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again could be any better than it is. I loved it to pieces and I can’t wait to go again!

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Is the Only Good Thing This Summer Has Given Us

By Bridget Read

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It’s been a rough summer. The things that we usually look forward to the most about the hottest months have a slightly sickly, dystopian sheen, like something isn’t quite right about this place (Earth) anymore. America’s brightest young things are getting engaged left and right , but are they okay ? Drake delivered his perennial album’s worth of sweating-in-the-club-ready R&B bops, except this year they discuss his secret love child with an adult film actress he claims to have only met a handful of times. Announcers at the World Cup were racist ; a guy on The Bachelorette was racist . Bikinis all have sleeves now . What gives, America?

This is why you must, must go see Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again this weekend. I simply urge you to jump into its cool cerulean waters and indulge in this slightly sloppily prepared, refreshing cinematic Greek salad of equal parts song and dance and irrepressible cheese. It’s the only pure good thing out there right now that knows exactly what the world outside is: filth, so why resemble anything like it?

I could sell you on the cast alone, probably. Mamma Mia ’s reprise sees a full return from the cast of the original musical turned movie, including Amanda Seyfried, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Dominic Cooper, and Meryl Streep , as a ghost (this isn’t a spoiler—it’s not my fault if you haven’t been paying attention to the MM2 discourse ). This time, we have the addition of Lily James, who plays a young Donna in a series of flashbacks that serve as backstory. We learn just how she got herself into the original film’s conundrum, in which her daughter, Sophie, had three possible fathers, and it’s a pretty simple explanation: She had a bunch of one-to-a-few-nights stands, sans diaphragm. Back in the present, Sophie is carrying on her mother’s legacy (again, Streep’s character is dead) by reopening the hotel she first crashed in on her Greek island home as a young pregnant unwed mother—here is where I assert that Mamma Mia is also feminist for this reason. Andy Garcia is the penultimate casting addition, all but extending his role as hot older distinguished gentleman in this summer’s only other good thing, Book Club , to play hot older distinguished hispanic gentleman. There are a few deeper cuts of the ABBA catalog to keep the songs fresh, but all the hits, of course, make their way back.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again ’s fantasy world of bright seaside colors against those quintessential white clay Greek hillside homes, its Anthropologie-inspired interpretation of ’70s clothing, its inconsistent attempts at historical accuracy (none of the suitcases have wheels but the microphones are cordless), its bald-faced shoehorning of ABBA’s confectionary hits into caftan-thin plotlines—the whole experience caresses like a warm breeze, spiked by one meaningless thunderstorm and a few incredible one-liners delivered by Donna’s friend Tanya (the honorable Baranski in the present, Jessica Keenan Wynn in the past). Back in the ’70s, Donna meets her suitors and goes home with them unafraid of the decade’s abundant serial killers; in 2018, a nod to a bunch of listless Greek fishermen sitting around with no money or jobs, which you might call its shoutout to the global recession, is solved by—what else—a bunch of ABBA songs. Everyone has the exact same hairstyle and distinctive personality traits over the span of several decades. At one point, the characters literally find a pearl in an oyster, that’s how good the citizens of Mamma Mia have it. Is it possible to change your country of origin to a movie sequel?

By Irene Kim

By Christian Allaire

I can’t tell you about the ending of Mamma Mia 2 without actually spoiling it, but I can tell you that we finally do see Cher , as Sophie’s grandma/Donna’s mom, and that she is decked out in silver with platinum hair like a tall chrome Dolly Parton, and that she sings, her beautiful moonlit face wholly unmoving except for her mouth. And that there is a subsequent scene that brought me to tears even as I thought to myself, This is so incredibly absurd . And that the film’s curtain call is one of the finest showstopping musical numbers and general feel-good fan pandering since goddamn Grease . If I sound passionate, it’s because I’m not used to feeling anything anymore. I await Mamma Mia s 3 through 10.

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Review: “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” Saves the Best for Last

By Richard Brody

If you fused the virtues of the original “Mamma Mia!” and its new sequel, “ Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again ,” the result would be one good movie. The methodical plotting and programmatic sentiment of the earlier film are balanced by the vigor and charm of its cinematic choreography. “Mamma Mia!” is a musical starring a cast of actors who aren’t primarily singers and dancers, and the movie’s director, Phyllida Lloyd, films their singing and dancing with a lively warmth to match their playful and hearty efforts. The sequences give the impression that she really wants to see what the musical action is like when she films it a certain way, and, at moments (notably, in the finale, centered on Julie Walters), the kinesthetic surprises strike emotions that the comedic action only strains at.

“Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” stands the earlier movie on its head (while using only a few of the songs that were prominently featured in it). Dramatically, it is far more elaborate than the original. Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep), the American woman who stayed on the (fictitious) Greek island of Kalokairi, built a small hotel, and raised her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), there, has died. A year after her mother’s death, Sophie, who’s about twenty-five, has finished renovating the hotel and is preparing—with the help of Sam (Pierce Brosnan), one of her possible fathers, and the one who married Donna at the end of the earlier film—its grand reopening. She’s hoping for her other two fathers, Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) and Harry (Colin Firth), to show up, awaiting Donna’s friends and musical cohorts, Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski), and fighting with her husband, Sky (Dominic Cooper), over the next turn in their lives.

Though the main characters of the original all return and their roles are certainly not deepened, “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” is nonetheless a movie of its script, written by Ol Parker (who also directed), Richard Curtis, and Catherine Johnson. Its drama is, in effect, built on mourning, which, far from being merely expressed or enacted, is embodied in an intricate flashback structure that serves a peculiar function. It brings the past to life, not for the movie’s characters or for its dramatic necessities and connections but, rather, directly for viewers. In “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” the recovery of the past outleaps the psychology of the characters and the present-tense action and delivers, directly to viewers, a celebratory commemoration of Donna.

Those flashbacks, set in 1979 and 1980, tell the story of Donna when she graduated from college (Oxford) and headed to Kalokairi by way of Paris. They offer younger versions of Donna, her friends, and her three lovers, and they’re the heart of the movie, owing in large part to the performance of Lily James, as young Donna, who brings a dramatic depth and substance with a seemingly calm effortlessness to a role that’s written as if on postcards. Young Donna is introduced as the valedictorian of her graduating class, and her speech quickly bursts into song, joined by young Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn) and young Rosie (Alexa Davies).

Parker, working with the choreographer Anthony Van Laast, offers production numbers that are more fanciful than those of the earlier film but which, with only a few exceptions, are less satisfying, because they are for the most part filmed with the inventiveness and spontaneity of a Super Bowl halftime show. This is all the more surprising inasmuch as the movie’s cinematographer, Robert Yeoman, is among the most original of the time—he has worked on all of Wes Anderson’s live-action features. His contribution to Parker’s dance scenes are most conspicuous in the best of the musical numbers (for “Waterloo”), one that’s set in an absurdly large and sumptuously decorated Parisian restaurant. Donna has a meet-cute with young Harry (Hugh Skinner) in the lobby of a rumpled hotel; soon they’re sharing a meal at which he bursts into romantic song and she joins him, in a series of fantasy moments that are reminiscent of rectilinear Andersonian capers.

There’s a peculiar idea, a curious prefabricated sociology, underpinning the diptych. It’s the story of a strong and independent young woman who follows her heart—and her desires—freely, who successfully realizes her life plan and raises a smart and capable daughter who nonetheless has an altogether more conventional set of dreams and expectations. Without a father figure in her life, Sophie summons the three men who might be her father; all three of them, young dorks who left Donna behind to make their own way through life, become successful on their own terms but remain emotionally unfulfilled. Belatedly, and through the agency of Sophie, they return to Donna and find a ready-made family that they plug themselves into, bringing their bourgeois worldliness and experience to the handmade, sweat-made, more natural and more rugged but provincial beauties that Donna has made (but which aren’t quite enough for Sophie, who hasn’t herself made them but merely been raised in them).

The entire symbolic heft of the series is in the very presence of Streep in the role of Donna. She sings and dances, but she doesn’t even have to; she only has to be there in order to exalt Donna as a self-willed, supremely transformative powerhouse. (Her brief presence in “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” is deftly, movingly threaded into the action.) James has a tough job—to suggest a Streep-like level of composure and purpose along with the inchoate energies and risky uncertainties of youth—which makes her performance all the more impressive.

The new movie’s generational reach, of course, includes Cher this time around, as Ruby, Donna’s mother and Sophie’s grandmother. It’s a brief but lavish role that’s rendered wraith-like in its inadequate scripting, and Cher does as much with it as the text allows. Parker’s direction is no help at all; his sense of sentiment runs far ahead of his sense of glamour and spectacle. The same narrow vision that keeps the dance scenes turgid also keeps Cher from being more than a mere signifier of herself; Parker’s direction doesn’t respond to Cher, it confines her.

Nonetheless, there’s an irrepressible charm to the sight of the gathered performers singing and dancing with a festive vitality. It’s hardly different from a peek at a good party, and it’s got hardly more artistic imagination animating it. “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” however, saves the best for last. It features a touch that’s so exquisite, simple, and obvious—a sort of end-credit sequence that Parker has the good idea to keep in the body of the film—that it would be worse to elide than it is to spoil. Implausibly, fantastically, but delightfully, all of the characters, through the generations, are brought together in one grand revel—young and mature Donna, her friends Rosie and Tanya then and now, the three men and their callow selves—as if dancing with themselves. It’s a concluding touch with all the naïveté of a high-school skit, and it bursts through the programmatic gloss of the story to restore its whimsical amateur inspiration.

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By Anthony Lane

By Sarah Larson

Film Review: ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’

The sequel to 'Mamma Mia!' takes the first film forward — and back — to create another kitsch romance powered by the blissed-out ABBA jukebox.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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“ Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again ,” the perfectly titled sequel to “Mamma Mia!” (it opens 10 years to the week after the first film), kicks off on a bubbly high. It’s 1979, and Donna, the free-spirited expatriate-on-a-Greek-island innkeeper played by Meryl Streep , is now played, at the end of her Oxford undergraduate days, by Lily James , in honey-gold ringlets, with a smile that could light up several city blocks. She comes onstage to deliver a graduation speech, and instead tugs the gown off her shoulders to do an unexpectedly fiery rendition of “When I Kissed the Teacher.”

Ten years ago, in “Mamma Mia!,” most of the actors approached singing ABBA songs as if they’d been given a free pass on karaoke night. Some belted, some crooned, some warbled, and even the great Streep kept  declaiming  the lyrics as if she thought every line of singing was supposed to be a line of acting. Then, of course, there was Pierce Brosnan , who sang “S.O.S.” sounding like a seal with a ping-pong ball stuck in his mouth.

Lily James transcends all that sloshed-emoting-at-the wedding tomfoolery. Standing there in her go-go space boots, joined by fellow Donna and the Dynamos members Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn) and Rosie (Alexa Davies), she tears into “When I Kissed the Teacher” like a tiger, and though it’s a less-than-great ABBA song, the staging is more dynamic than anything in the first “Mamma Mia!” The number has propulsion and flair, which makes you hope that the film will be a sustained lyrical experience — not just a semi-irresistible pastiche but an honest-to-God musical to remember.

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True confession: I’m a religious nut about ABBA, one who saw the Broadway production of “Mamma Mia!” three times, but I didn’t love the movie version of “Mamma Mia!” The cheeseball plot, which was like “Gilligan’s Island” recast as a romcom, was never designed to be anything but a delivery system for the incandescence of ABBA’s music. Yet it actually worked less well with major actors — Streep, Brosnan, etc. — demonstrating, in every line, what stick figures they were playing. (Also, the Broadway performers sang a lot better.) The movie was fun, in its way, but it was also an uneasy fusion of rapture and camp that clunked.

But now that there’s a “Mamma Mia!” sequel, it can be said with certainty that the ABBA musical is a form unto itself — a shamelessly innocent (or maybe just shameless) scrapbook pieced together out of the world’s most sublime ear candy, a story that sprawls in four directions at once (each subplot seems crafted by a different cookie cutter), an overdose of clowning by middle-aged actors who’ve been encouraged to take a fearless pride in what raffish physical specimens they’ve become, all held together by the transcendent classiness of Meryl Streep.

Streep is barely in the new movie, since Donna died the year before it starts. Yet she hovers over it in spirit and does eventually show up, at which point you will cry. Donna’s daughter, Sophie, is played once again by Amanda Seyfried , who has grown from an ingénue with goldfish eyes into a beautifully tough and sculpted presence (think vintage Sarah Jessica Parker), and she sings a cross-continental duet with Sky (Dominic Cooper), her true love, after he announces that he’s going to leave her to work in the New York hotel business. As these two croon “One of Us” ( “One of us is lonely…” ), the movie is barely 10 minutes old, and already you can feel your heart breaking. That’s the ABBA effect, but it’s also a testament to how keenly the writer-director, Ol Parker, lays out the song’s wistful rapture.

Sophie, who is honoring her mother by relaunching her inn as the Bella Donna Hotel, can barely make a move without casting a sadly adoring glance back at Donna and all that she represents: the soul of women who are free and strong and passionate, and therefore melting and yearning and gorgeously melancholy. That’s the holy spirit of ABBA, and in “Here We Go Again” that spirit infuses you with a swooning musical high, even if the giddy soap-opera convolutions take up most of the space.

The movie cuts back and forth between Sophie planning her hotel relaunch party — can she weather a heavy rainstorm? will she get back together with Sky? will all three of her dads show up? — and James’ Donna, 40 years before, finding her way to that Greek island and spinning through the trio of romantic entanglements we first heard about in “Mamma Mia!” “Here We Go Again” is another kitsch patchwork; it’s as if you were watching the CliffsNotes to an old studio weeper that happened to be carried along by some of the most luscious pop songs ever recorded. Yet the feeling comes through, especially at the end — a love poem to the primal bond of mothers and daughters.

Each of the actors playing Donna’s young suitors is just callowly sexy enough to be appealing. First she meets Harry (the Colin Firth character), played by Hugh Skinner as the world’s most polite preppie punk, in a Johnny Rotten T-shirt and too-small leather jacket. They do an exuberant duet on “Waterloo,” and then it’s on to her adventure with Bill (the Stellan Skarsgård character), played by Josh Dylan as a hunky blond sailor who agrees to ferry her to the island. The young Pierce Brosnan is played by Jeremy Irvine, who squints with enough purpose to let us know that he’s Donna’s true love.

“Here We Go Again” uses a few of the same songs that “Mamma Mia!” did, such as the title number and a virtual restaging of “Dancing Queen,” with a chorus running through the woods and winding up on that same beach, where they perform what amounts to a slightly less awkward version of a group dance number out of a ’70s TV variety show. Yet since ABBA’s greatest hits were basically strip-mined for the first film, most of the songs here are less high-profile ABBA gems, and that means that the movie conjures a more reflective, downbeat mood.

That’s not a bad thing. Several of the numbers soar, like “Andante, Andante” (which could be the film’s slow-love anthem) or “Angel Eyes,” led by Sophie as a warning against men who are too seductive to be true. One of ABBA’s greatest songs, “The Name of the Game,” was dropped from the first film and appears here, though I wish the movie went with its interlocking emotions more; the number starts off well but turns into a piece of orange-picking slapstick.

And then, of course, there’s the walking pop royalty that is Cher . She shows up near the end, playing Sophie’s grandmother (though she looks more like Lady Gaga’s aunt), and if there’s any single testament here to the “Mamma Mia!” aesthetic, it’s the way that Cher’s performance of “Fernando” is hung on a story hook so contrived that it actually contributes to the song’s passion. The film barely pretends that there’s a reason for it to be there. The reason is: We want to see Cher sing “Fernando.” When she does, my my, how can you resist her?

Reviewed at AMC Empire, New York, July 16, 2018. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 114 MIN.

• Production: A Universal Pictures release, in association with Legendary Pictures/Perfect World Pictures, a Playtone/Littlestar production. Producers: Judy Craymer, Gary Goetzman. Executive producers: Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, Richard Curtis, Phyllida Lloyd, Nicky Kentish Barnes.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Ol Parker. Camera (color, widescreen): Robert Yoeman. Editor: Peter Lambert. Music: Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus.  
• With: Amanda Seyfried, Lily James, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Meryl Streep, Cher, Andy Garcia, Alexa Davies, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Josh Dylan, Jeremy Irvine, Hugh Skinner, Dominic Cooper, Julie Walters, Christine Baranski.

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Reviews

Frothy summer fun...

Full Review | Dec 8, 2022

It's silly and at times even ridiculous, but it's delivered in such a genuine manner that you welcome and embrace the silliness of it all.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5 / 5 | Jun 24, 2021

The movie is a significant improvement on its predecessor. Then again, it's difficult to state just how incompetently made the first movie is.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Feb 4, 2021

If you're looking for the perfect summer film, look no further than Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 2, 2021

ABBA. Sequins. Cher. You can't go wrong.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 4, 2020

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again should once again get fans standing in the aisles, dancing and singing along to their favourite hits and having a blast with a charming cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 30, 2020

As a prequel dressed as a sequel, it's too much and not enough.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 25, 2020

Utterly ludicrous, joyously fun and has an emotional arc which will stick in the back of your throat. If you are expecting that all glittery, spandex-wearing cast number you will not be disappointed with copious amounts of laughter bringing you to tears.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 22, 2020

The sooner I stop thinking about this movie, the better.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 9, 2020

The plot was just a disaster.

Full Review | May 19, 2020

Better than the first, but not by much.

{The film} serves fans what they want and expect, but also ratchets things up a notch and, consequently, casts a spell all its own. And those end credits are worth the price of admission alone!

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Apr 26, 2020

Bigger, brighter, bonkers-er. In short -- it's exactly what we need right now.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 28, 2020

In Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, things just kind of happen to provide excuses to sing listlessly. These renditions are so flat and lifeless, they make the original versions sound raw and edgy.

Full Review | Jan 17, 2020

Sequels generally are diminishing in returns, but this one seems like such a shadow of the first. Waiting 10 years did it no favors. Most of it feels old, tired, and very "been there, done that."

Full Review | Oct 17, 2019

Whether you're an ABBA fan or not, this is a swirl of fluffy cotton candy that's sometimes a little too sweet, but hard to resist.

Full Review | Aug 13, 2019

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again blends kitsch and nostalgia delightfully, dressing it up in Greek shades of white and blue and vivid '70s style.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2019

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again outshines the original in virtually every department, with better singing, better dancing, and better humor.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 18, 2019

An acceptable musical that would surprise me a lot if it did not please those who enjoyed 'Mamma Mia'. I would advise the others to spend their time watching another movie. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 13, 2019

Songs were the strength of Mamma Mia in 2008, they are doubly so now. So take two hours of your life to sing your heart out and watch beautiful people in sunny places. Escape.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 10, 2019

The 'Mamma Mia!' sequel is better than the original — despite Meryl Streep's absence

Warning: Minor spoilers ahead for "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again." 

" Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again ," the sequel to "Mamma Mia!," is finally coming out 10 years after the first. 

Almost all of the original cast returns for the sequel, but the movie is also a prequel of sorts, following a young Donna as she ends up on  Kalokairi and meets all three of Sophie's potential dads. In the present day, Sophie is working to reopen her mother's hotel, finds out she's pregnant, and meets her estranged grandmother, played by none other than Cher. 

It's a heartwarming and worthy follow-up to the original movie. 

Why you should care:  It's a sequel that's better than the first movie.

As many fans guessed with the first trailer , Donna (Meryl Streep) is dead. But even though her absence is felt, it doesn't make the movie any less fun. 

The flashbacks to young Donna, played by Lilly James, are interwoven throughout the movie at the right moments to add more color and context. The parallels to the first movie are fun to spot, but the new story is more fun and silly. 

There are also incredibly quotable lines coming from Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters), who show up to support Sophie in the reopening of her mother's hotel.

And if fans were worried, Streep is still in the movie in a small capacity .

What's hot: The new and returning cast are full of wonder. 

Related stories

Almost all of the cast returns in the sequel and their characters are just as silly and fun. Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper are lovely as Sophie and Sky, Streep's small turn as Donna is emotional, and Baranski and Walters are perfect as Tanya and Rosie. Then the dads — Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), and Harry (Colin Firth) — are just as endearing.

But with the flashbacks, new actors are introduced to play young versions of our favorite characters. Jeremy Irvine is a young Sam, Hugh Skinner is a young Harry, and Josh Dylan is a young Bill, who all woo the heart of a young Donna. Her two friends are played by Alexa Davies as young Rosie and Jessica Kennan Wynn as young Tanya. Wynn's impersonation of Baranski is spot-on and her exact mannerisms are impressive. 

Then of course there's Andy Garcia as new character  Fernando Cienfuegos and Cher, who is wonderful as Sophie's estranged grandmother. 

But the standout is James. Her enthusiasm and joy for life as young Donna is projected beautifully in all of her scenes. It's easy to see how her carefree life led her to Greece and the events that would change her life. 

What's not: The timeline is a little off. 

The best thing about the movie is that it leans into the wild and corny moments, so my only critique, as someone who isn't taking this movie too seriously, is that the timeline doesn't exactly make sense. 

The events in Donna's diary from the first movie don't line up with the flashbacks. In the sequel, she meets Harry in Paris and the two hook up there before she heads to Greece where she later meets Bill and Sam. It's unclear how many weeks or days pass, and it's a little out of wack. 

But really, none of that matters. 

The bottom line: It's the perfect movie to escape to. 

The "Mamma Mia" movies are not Oscar-worthy films that are going to transform your life. But that's not why you watch them. 

"Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again" is an utter delight. Between the glorious soundtrack that made me dance in my seat to the corny moments that made me laugh, I couldn't stop smiling the whole time. It's fairly predictable but a pure joy to sit through. And the end may even make you tear up — it sure made me sniffle. 

"Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again" arrives in theaters on Friday, July 20. Watch the full trailer below:

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1 surprising real-life jason statham detail makes his very first movie scene even better, "we would never do that": dwayne johnson's fiery action scenes in $304m movie get poor score from firefighter, for mamma mia fans, here we go again offers a jubilant return to the unapologetically silly world of the original abba stage musical-turned movie..

The Mamma Mia! film sequel  Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again recaptures much of its predecessor's adorkable charm, despite having taken a decade to come together. While it's no surprise that a second Mamma Mia! film ultimately got made (the first one grossed $616 million worldwide, after all), what is unexpected in its form. Taking a leaf from The Godfather: Part II 's book of all sources, Here We Go Again! presents two parallel stories: one that's set in 1979 and follows co-protagonist Donna as a young woman, the other set five years after the first Mamma Mia! and centered on Donna's now 25-year old daughter, Sophie. By and large, however, this approach works. For Mamma Mia! fans, Here We Go Again! offers a jubilant return to the unapologetically silly world of the original ABBA stage musical-turned movie.

In the film's present timeline, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is preparing to re-open her mother's villa on the Greek island of Kalokairi, a year after Donna (Meryl Streep) passed away. However, Sophie's desire to stay on the island creates tension between her and her husband Sky (Dominic Cooper), who is far from sold on the idea. When a storm threatens to derail her plans altogether, Sophie struggles to not give up, even with support from her mom's old pals Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski), and one of her three dads, Sam (Pierce Brosnan).

Meanwhile, back in the '70s, young Donna (Lily James) is fresh out of school and ready for an adventure, as are her friends and fellow members of The Dynamos, Rosie (Alexa Davies) and Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn). Donna thus decides to set out a journey to Greece - one that leads her to a ramshackle villa, which she forms a connection to and envisions as being something more. Along the way, however, Donna also crosses paths with three young men who are inextricably linked to her fate: Harry (Hugh Skinner), Bill (Josh Dylan), and Sam (Jeremy Irvine).

Directed by Ol Parker ( Imagine Me & You ), Here We Go Again is a jukebox musical in the same vein as the first Mamma Mia! , and carries over some of that film's more popular ABBA songs (like "Dancing Queen" and, naturally, "Mamma Mia"). Thankfully, the vast majority of the sequel's musical numbers are based on ABBA tunes that weren't featured in its predecessor and give rise to some creatively-staged song and dance sequences, under Parker's supervision. Here We Go Again 's best musical set pieces (like "One of Us" and "Waterloo") similarly benefit from the cinematography by Wes Anderson's frequent collaborator Robert D. Yeoman, who films everything in a clean fashion and draws from a bright color palette to keep the proceedings feeling bubbly and chipper. Though certain musical numbers are noticeably better in their execution and camerawork than others, the Mamma Mia! sequel largely delivers the goods, as far as musical spectacle is concerned.

However, as one might expect, the actual story here - which Parker shares credit for penning with Richard Curtis ( About Time ) and Mamma Mia! writer Catherine Johnson - is rather flimsy. To be fair, there are certainly times where the film effectively juxtaposes Sophie's difficulties with young Donna's efforts to figure out where she's going in her life, in part by cross-cutting smoothly between the two storylines. Problem is, on the whole there's simply not a whole lot to either plot thread, either in terms of conflict or thematic substance. The '70s-based through-line also fails to reveal anything significant about Donna's past that the first Mamma Mia! hadn't already established, at the same time that it retcons certain aspects of the first movie in clumsy ways. Still, as fluffy as Here We Go Again 's narrative is, the film deserves credit for not merely re-hashing its predecessor's plot (as sequels are often guilty of doing) and making an actual effort to expand upon it.

Of course, much of the fun of the Mamma Mia! sequel comes from seeing the old gang back together singing and dancing, including Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård as the older versions of Harry and Bill. Like in the first movie, the cast is more than willing to be as goofy and playful as the song lyrics and dance choreography here calls on them to be. The returning players likewise slide easily back into their former roles and their banter is all the more easy-going and enjoyable for it. In many ways, the Mamma Mia! franchise's greatest strength is its cast's willingness to be as dorky and ridiculous as this heightened reality of this musical universe calls for. Indeed, that's Here We Go Again 's saving grace as much, if not more, than any other aspect of the film.

James as young Donna feels right at home in the Mamma Mia! series for related reasons. In many ways, her energetic performance supplies Here We Go Again with its beating heart, as do her (largely successful) efforts to channel Streep's physical mannerisms as the character. Young Harry, Bill, and Sam are not quite on the same level as James' turn as Donna, but for the most way they are believable enough as 20-something versions of their respective A-list counterparts. Other new additions here include Andy Garcia as the mysterious yet suave Fernando, the manager of Sophie's re-opened villa (the Hotel Bella Donna), and Cher as Sophie's vainglorious showbiz grandmother, Rubie. Both characters are pretty cartoonish and the trajectory of their arcs is clearly telegraphed early one, but are perfectly amusing at the same time.

On the whole, Here We Go Again offers as much (if not more) cheesy entertainment and escapist fun as the first Mamma Mia! film. It won't convert anyone to the shrine of ABBA and those who found the original movie musical to be tedious and creaky might not care much for the sequel, but Here We Go Again (wisely) never bothers to try and broaden the appeal of the Mamma Mia! brand in that sense, either. Those who are so inclined are thus advised to go spend another two hours watching what (essentially) amounts to celebrities performing karaoke in scenic Greece. And of course, this being a sequel that's arriving in theaters in 2018, don't leave before Here We Go Again 's end credits are completely done rolling.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again  is now playing in U.S. theaters nationwide. It is 114 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for some suggestive material.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments section!

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Review

20 Jul 2018

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

With its all-star cast ( Streep ! Firth ! Brosnan !), relentless kitsch, and all-killer ABBA soundtrack, Mamma Mia! might just be the The Godfather of so-camp-it’s-classic jukebox musicals. Kudos, then, to writer-director Ol Parker ( The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ) for pitching the cleverly titled sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again as its The Godfather Part II — part sequel reuniting the original cast, part prequel recounting the summer that first brought Meryl Streep’s Donna to Kalokairi, Greece.

In its best moments, Parker recaptures the original’s free-wheeling joy and energy — the young Donna, Rosie and Tanya ( Lily James , Alexa Davies and Jessica Keenan Wynn, all excellent) tearing off their graduation robes to reveal stripy catsuits and feather boas in opening number ‘When I Kissed the Teacher’ is gloriously silly, picking up tonally right where Phyllida Lloyd’s original film left off. James, given the unenviable task of continuing a role originated by Meryl Streep, is full of vitality and convincingly channels her free-spirited hippie vibes. But despite the cast’s energetic efforts, the overlong prequel plot needs tightening — with the first film already recounting the basics of Donna’s string of summer romances you’ll know exactly where it’s going, and luxuriant pacing results in a baggy middle hour.

When the singing and dancing is in full swing, it’s just as infectious as it was a decade ago.

Conversely, the sequel thread spends too long in a low gear before ramping up for its crowdpleasing finale. Unnecessary emotional weight in the story leaves Seyfried’s Sophie — so carefree first time around — stressed, tired and sad for much of the runtime. Thank goodness, then, for Julie Walters and Christine Baranski (the MVP again, as she was last time) as Donna’s best friends, who keep things moving with a steady stream of laughs (Baranski gets the year’s best line of dialogue so far) and the sparkiest musical number in ‘Angel Eyes’. When the plot threatens to veer too far into gloomy territory, Firth and Stellan Skarsgård sail in to the rescue, quite literally bringing the party with them and giving the film a much-needed lift. And speaking of relief, Brosnan isn’t called on to sing much here — either a positive or a negative, depending on your taste for high-enthusiasm, low-competence honking.

Streep’s screentime is disappointingly brief, so there’s the need for a shot of star power. And waiting in the wings is Cher , playing Sophie’s fearsome grandmother in an extended last-reel cameo, although her part is all-too-brief, and her duet with Andy Garcia on the mid-tempo plod of ‘Fernando’ isn’t quite as rousing as it needs to be.

While the plot of Here We Go Again hits some occasional bum notes, another soundtrack of ABBA classics hits almost all the right ones. With most of ABBA Gold used last time, a little silver and bronze padding has slipped through here (‘Andante Andante’, anyone?), but when the singing and dancing is in full swing — a reprise of the first film’s jubilant ‘Dancing Queen’ sequence, an all-cast rendition of ‘Super Trouper’ — it’s just as infectious as it was a decade ago.

The first Mamma Mia! often felt like being trapped on a non-stop rowdy middle-aged all-singing all-dancing holiday (in a good way). Ten years on this second trip feels older and wiser, for better or worse, and despite the odd misstep you’ll still be dancing in the aisles come the end credits. Bring on Mamma Three-a! in 2028.

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‘mamma mia here we go again’: film review.

Writer-director Ol Parker and the producers get the whole band back together — and add a few newcomers, including Cher — for another round in this sequel to the smash 2008 hit 'Mamma Mia!'

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

Contributing Film Critic

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Spawned by a film no one predicted would be as successful as it was, which was adapted from a musical that itself was a huge surprise hit, comes a sequel that is — predictably — made with more money, wit and craft and yet remains faintly disappointing. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again , the follow-up to 2008’s smash jukebox musical Mamma Mia! (it earned over $600 million worldwide), is the cinematic equivalent of a B-side (digital-age readers may need to Google what that means): adequate, blessed with a few good hooks and likely to have its fervent fans. But no one would be paying much attention if the other one hadn’t been such a big deal.

Indeed, the movie’s biggest failing is that so much of its soundtrack, the very engine that propels it, is made up of far too many actual B-sides, or at least lesser-known tunes from the back catalogue of Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, the two Swedish singer-songwriters who made up half of the 1970s pop quartet ABBA.

Release date: Jul 20, 2018

The first film/stage production, an ingenious if silly contraption, consisted of a tacked-together tale (about a young woman, the daughter of a single parent, getting married on a Greek island and inviting the three men who may or may not be her father to the wedding) reverse-engineered around a collection of solid-gold hits, with every single one a toe-tapper. That is, if your toes are triggered to tap by the sound of lush orchestrations, close-harmony singing and deceptively simple but secretly musically sophisticated melodies, further stimulated perhaps by memories of ’70s fashions in all their lurid, glittery glory. “Dancing Queen,” “Super Trouper,” the title track “Mamma Mia” itself — they all fit that bill.  

The pickings are decidedly thinner for Mamma Mia! 2.0 . There’s a reason such tunes as “When I Kissed the Teacher,” “Kisses of Fire” and “My Love, My Life” didn’t become hits on the same scale as the aforementioned tunes. (Hint: They’re kind of crap.) This left the producers and filmmakers behind Here We Go Again with a particularly tricky challenge if they were to fulfill the mandate of all sequels: Offer more of the same but make it a little different.

Given that familiar, sing-along-able songs are so integral to the Mamma Mia brand’s appeal, the solution they’ve elected to use here is a compromise, one that patches together a story out of the leftover tunes but intersperses them with exactly the same colossal hits we already know and love from the first time around. It’s a solution both fantastically audacious and profoundly, bizarrely lazy. Imagine Rodgers and Hammerstein deciding to do a sequel to South Pacific and just recycling “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” “Some Enchanted Evening” and “There Is Nothing Like a Dame” because, hey, everyone loves those ones.

With that major caveat out of the way, it’s possible to acknowledge that there are many elements in this assembly that hugely improve on the original. For a start, the script — credited to Ol Parker ( The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ), who also directs here, derived from a story by Parker, Richard Curtis ( Four Weddings and a Funeral , Notting Hill ) and Catherine Johnson (who wrote the book for the original Mamma Mia! ) — is leagues better than its predecessor. Generously salted with witty one-liners that sound particularly Curtisian with their self-deprecating, oh-so-British cadences, the screenplay also has more emotional depth and complexity. That is especially true because it is structured around the — spoiler alert! — ensemble’s collective grief over the early death of Donna (Meryl Streep), the hotelier from the first film whose dalliance with three men back in the late ’70s led to the birth of her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), the bride whose wedding is the centerpiece for the first musical.

Adroitly calling back to the first film with lots of reincorporated details (There’s the diary! Check out the dungarees!), Here We Go Again shifts back and forth between two timelines. In the present, Sophie and her stepdad Sam ( Pierce Brosnan ) strain to get Hotel Bella Donna, a redevelopment of Donna’s old farmhouse hotel on a Greek island, ready for a splashy relaunch to which various old friends (everyone of note from the first film) are coming.

Meanwhile, thanks to the magic of visual effects and nifty match cuts, flashbacks reveal what happened all those years ago when newly graduated Donna (played this time by a peppy Lily James) first arrived on the island and had affairs with Sam (played as a young man by Jeremy Irvine), Bill (Josh Dylan, and a returning Stellan Skarsgard in the present) and Harry (Hugh Skinner, scene-stealer from TV comedies The Windsors and Fleabag , and latterly by Colin Firth).

To reveal much more about the plot risks spoiling the fun, but only those who have been living in caves for the last few months will be unaware that Cher features crucially in the story as Donna’s estranged mother. The film takes its sweet time finally getting her onscreen, but her entrance is worth it, a drag-queen-style showstopper that starts from the stilettos and works its way up, designed to get queens of all genders jumping to their feet or bowing down in adoration, according to inclination. For a duet with Andy Garcia (almost inaudible through the swampy arrangement), there are even fireworks — deservedly for a tune that Johnson just understandably couldn’t find a way to work into the first edition but which comes into its own here. It’s basically the movie’s highlight, just as the cleverly jimmied-in production of “Waterloo,” sung with gusto by Skinner and James, is the helium that keeps the midsection aloft.

Parker, a more competent and imaginative director than Mamma Mia! ’s stage-show holdover Phyllida Lloyd, likes to assemble the musical numbers in such a way as to recall the very earliest days of pop videos, with snappy editing or Busby Berkeley-style overhead shots of choreography veering on abstraction. The result is to make this feel much more like a throwback to old-school musicals in all their corny glory. It helps that the cast looks like they’re having a right old hootenanny of a time, practically winking at the audience, in on the joke all the way. And best of all, we don’t have to listen to Brosnan’s atrocious singing too much.

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'mamma mia' sequel trailer teases bigger musical spectacle, less meryl streep.

Production: A Universal Pictures presentation in association with Legendary Pictures/Perfect World Pictures of a Playtone/Littlestar production Distributor: Universal Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Andy Garcia, Celia Imrie, Lily James, Alexa Davies, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Dominic Cooper , Julie Walters , Christine Baranski, Hugh Skinner, Pierce Brosnan, Omid Djalili, Josh Dylan, Gerard Monaco, Anna Antoniades, Jeremy Irvine, Panos Mouzourakis, Maria Vacratsis, Naoko Mori, Togo Igawa, Colin Firth, Anastasia Hille, Stellan Skarsgard, Susanne Barklund, Cher, Jonathan Goldsmith, Meryl Streep Director-screenwriter: Ol Parker Story: Richard Curtis, Ol Parker, Catherine Johnson Producers: Judy Craymer, Gary Goetzman Executive producers: Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, Richard Curtis, Phyllida Lloyd, Nicky Kentish Barnes Co-executive producer: Steven Sharshian Director of photography: Robert Yeoman Production designer: Alan MacDonald, John Frankish Costume designer: Michele Clapton Editor: Peter Lambert Music and lyrics: Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus Composter: Anne Dudley Music director: Martin Koch Music supervisor: Becky Bentham Choreographer: Anthony Van Laast Casting: Nina Gold

Rated PG-13, 114 minutes

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Mamma Mia 2 Review: Tunefully Leaves the Original in the Dust

The original Mamma Mia cast returns for a sequel that far surpasses what came before it.

After ten long years, the musical joy of Mamma Mia! has returned to the big screen with Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again , and all in all, the sequel may actually be better than the original. Though it did not have nearly as much of Meryl Streep, who was the true star of the first movie, it still managed to geniusly hold onto the essence that made the first movie so enjoyable, telling the story of Donna Sheridan in an even more interesting way without even needing her Oscar winning actress there for the duration of the movie.

The biggest factor that made Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again such a fantastic sequel was how it was written. The original Mamma Mia! was originally written for the stage, which frankly took a bit away from the movie's quality. While the movie was still good, many fans still prefered the Broadway version more, simply because it was initially written for Broadway. On the other hand, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again was written for the screen, and because of that became much better.

While stage performances are great, they aren't able to portray the little things the way that movies can. The sequel had something that the original Mamma Mia did not: subtly. The subtle manner of storytelling using in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again managed to draw connections between Sophie and Donna from their different time periods without resorting to cliche Broadway techniques. Additionally, the script was able to explore more locations around the world other than just Donna's island, as a movie is allowed to have numerous more sets than a Broadway musical. This space also helped to improve the choreography, turning the performance of "Dancing Queen" into one of the highlights of the movie, with the dancing taking place on the island and on a number of ferries.

Additionally, the Godfather II style of storytelling was rather well done. A number of other movies have attempted to mimic this dual storytelling style in the past, but Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again may be the best movie to replicate it. The first half of the sequel put an emphasis of Donna's story in 1979, and the second half of the movie emphasized the modern day struggle of Sophie. While the connection between the two stories was rather vague towards the beginning, it gradually became more vivid as the movie went on. The conclusion of the modern day story cleverly managed to serve as the perfect conclusion to the 1979 story without even needing to show how the 1979 story actually ended.

The storytelling elements, the fun music and the incredible performances by the entire cast made Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again into a truly fantastic sequel. Whereas the first movie touched the surface of Donna's mysterious past, this sequel further expanded her character, and in doing so, further expanded nearly every other character in this impressive sequel from Universal Pictures . All things considered, if you liked the original Mamma Mia! , you are sure to love Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again .

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again review: Fans can take a chance on the musical sequel

The ABBA-worshipping movie takes a gloomy detour before getting back on track.

With stats like that, you would have expected greedy film producers to be rubbing their hands together and demanding a sequel straight away. But even they knew that didn't seem right.

When it was announced that Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (an inspired title, we'll give it that) was in the works, many fans were divided. Did we need more of the ridiculous sunshine-soaked fantasy lives of hotel owner Donna, her ageing babydaddies and wide-eyed daughter Sophie? Or should Mamma Mia remain a glorious and magical one-off? Hadn't they used the best of the best of ABBA already?

Ten years later, Mamma Mia 2 is finally here, and although it's unlikely to win over anyone who didn't love the original, fans should be pleased... for the most part.

Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walters, Dominic Cooper, Amanda Seyfried and Stellan Skarsgard return to the island of Kalokairi, bringing pop superstar Cher along for the ride as Donna's mum Ruby.

Five years on from where the last film left off, Sophie (Seyfried) is busy putting the finishing touches to the grand reopening party for the newly renovated hotel that Donna once owned. Yes, while Streep is still on the cast, Donna is no longer with us (RIP), but that's not a spoiler, as we find out pretty much as soon as the film starts and is the plot point upon which the film pretty much hangs.

As Sophie reminisces with Sam (Brosnan), one of her three dads, about her mum, we are transported back in time via a series of colourful flashbacks to see just how Donna (played by the brilliant Lily James) became the, er, Muggy Megan we loved in the first film.

The old cast are on top form (though please never let tone-deaf Cooper near a microphone again), while the actors playing the younger versions of our favourite characters are a joy. James , as Donna, is effortlessly likeable as she – to use an icky cliché – lights up the screen with her gorgeous face, lush, free-flowing locks and impressive vocals, while W1A 's Hugh Skinner is hilariously goofy as young Harry. Jeremy Irvine (Sam) and Josh Dylan (Bill) are the delish guy candy with tantalisingly exposed torsos, while Alexa Davies and Jessica Keenan Wynn are suitably hilarious as young Rosie and Tanya.

Like its predecessor, MM2 adopts a shamelessly panto tone, where slapstick and overacting are the default settings. It's almost as if the more sophisticated big-screen musicals La La Land and The Greatest Showman had never happened. But in some ways, it doesn't matter that Mamma Mia! doesn't attempt to be anything more than mindless fluff. That was always its charm – it was never going to win an Oscar. So for those expecting more of the same, you will not be disappointed. Well, not too much, anyway.

The plot is basic, familiar and lightweight enough to hang the timeless ABBA songs off. But that's where we stumble across our first problem. The songs just aren't as good as the ones in the first film, because they already used all the best ones.

The first big number is the little-known 'When I Kissed the Teacher' . It's an exuberant tune and lively set piece for sure, but an uninspiring choice for the song that is supposed to suck us into the narrative. Elsewhere, young Donna and young Bill belt out the tuneless 'Why Did It Have to Be Me?', which has to be one of the worst ABBA songs we've ever heard. This utterly forgettable album track from their debut Arrival only goes to show that not all that ABBA produced was brilliant.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the plot is a bit more sombre this time around. Not only is Sophie mourning the death of her mother and at odds with her boyfriend Sky (Cooper), who is planning to accept a job in New York, there is a storm that wreaks havoc across the island and destroys all of Sophie's hard work.

But the later stages bring a sudden shift in tone as the campiness we'd been hoping for finally arrives. And it's all thanks to the arrival of the majestic diva that is Cher. As Sophie's party gets under way, a helicopter swoops toward the island and deposits Ruby Sheridan, Donna's Vegas showgirl mum, slap bang in the middle of the action.

It's a moment of pure camp delight as a dazzling Cher, bathed in what appears to be a miraculous wrinkle-bashing light (and a dose of CGI, we suspect), strolls out of the shadows and proceeds to spit out a disappointingly limited amount of sassy one-liners before launching into a delicious rendition of 'Fernando'.

It is in these later scenes that the film finally finds itself back on track and feels for the first time like old Mamma Mia! again. Even the incredibly tender christening scene soundtracked by the exquisite and heartwrenching track 'My Love, My Life' feels oh so right, probably because it features Meryl Streep (SPOILER) in a tear-inducing cameo.

But these later scenes oddly feel like they've been hurriedly tacked on to the end of a slightly different film and aren't – damn it – long enough for fans to enjoy, so the pacing of the film occasionally gets bogged down and throws us out of our ABBA enjoyment.

But wait... Perhaps we're thinking too hard about this.

Mamma Mia 2 basically does what it sets out to do. Yes, the songs might not be as good as last time round, or the tone not as positive, but it still fills the most jaded heart with joy and that is, in this day and age, a miracle.

So all in all, Mamma Mia 2 is an unashamed cheesy sensation that will please the fans but will never win over the doubters. But then again, it was never for them in the first place.

Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again will be released in US and UK cinemas on July 20. Book tickets here .

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Entertainment

‘Mamma Mia 2’ Is Emotional And Fun, But Missing One Important Thing

Hint: It has to do with Pierce Brosnan

Despite a collective reputation as fussy spoilsports, film critics rarely engage in open derision at movie screenings and, indeed, when I saw the ABBA-scored musical Mamma Mia! at a press screening a decade ago, most of the attendees were delighted by the movie’s enthusiastic, Cheeto-level cheesiness. But when Pierce Brosnan boldly stepped forth to duet with Meryl Streep, large portions of the audience erupted into laughter. Brosnan, as it turns out, is not a very good singer. He is also, as it happens, the best part of Mamma Mia! , a terrible but beloved movie which has, a decade later, a sequel opening this weekend.

Brosnan’s moment of triumph comes around the 65-minute mark of the original film. His character, Sam, is lamenting his lost relationship with Donna (Streep), the woman whose daughter’s mystery dad drives the movie’s plot-jalopy. Sam and Donna express themselves by trading verses on ABBA’s song “S.O.S.” The key lyric—“When you’re gone/ How can I even try to go on”—has become nearly as much of a Brosnan signature as “shaken, not stirred.”

Brosnan sings his first “When you’re gone” while he looms in a doorway, watching his beloved fret; he sounds troubled, as if he’s coming to terms with his emotions as they escape via his vocal cords. When he reprises the lyric, with he and Streep positioned on opposite sides of a corner wall and his “when you’re gone” backing hers up, his intensity increases, emitting from his mouth as a passionate and also somewhat strangled cry, pushing the boundaries of his clearly limited range. He looks physically pained. But if Streep is in, he’s in. He finishes the number.

And then it’s over, in just a few glorious minutes. It’s not just that Brosnan’s pained utterances feel spontaneous, as if no one actually bothered to have him practice singing before it was time to record his number. This is true, but all of Mamma Mia! feels spontaneous, in the sense that very little of it looks properly choreographed or blocked. Yet, the movie also somehow feels incredibly synthetic, an infinite supply of processed cheese. In a movie where so many performers, especially the veterans, seem boundlessly confident that what they’re doing represents the height of mirth, all while acting out a screenplay that gins up conflict from basically nothing, Brosnan, pushing himself past his obvious hesitation, is the only authentically expressed human emotion on display. Technical prowess is all well and good, but most of the cast falls in a range between passable and boring. Brosnan stands out. I have seen all of Mamma Mia! twice, once 10 years ago and once this week. I have seen the “S.O.S.” number, conservatively, a dozen times.

Brosnan sings elsewhere in the movie, but his flailing isn’t enough to make an honest movie out of Mamma Mia! If anything, the scarcity of his anti-chops hinders the movie further. The reason a climactic “The Winner Takes It All” is such a listless solo for Streep is that Brosnan must stand around politely listening, when what the movie really needs is for him to belt his tone-deaf ass off—anything to distract from the way in which, somehow, the simple task of filming a woman singing to a man seems to overtax the filmmakers. Closer to the end, the movie cruelly cuts off Brosnan’s rendition of “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,” but allows him to warble “When All Is Said and Done.” It’s a more minor pleasure, but it offers brief respite from all of the movie’s clumsy shouting and circle-running.

The reception of Brosnan’s singing is probably why he doesn’t do much solo vocalizing in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again , which is a more polished production than its predecessor. And yet even still, Brosnan provides an early emotional lynchpin for the film. Sam and Donna wound up married at the end of Mamma Mia!, but as the sequel opens, it's revealed that Donna has been dead for a year, something the trailers tried their best to obscure . At least half of the movie is a prequel dramatizing the events of Donna’s life only described in the original, and as present-day Sam gazes at pictures of a younger Donna (Lily James), he sings, softly and to himself, another reprise of his big number from the last movie: “When you’re gone/ How can I even try to go on,” he asks the Donna in the pictures. It’s a quiet moment, and the way it collapses a moment of goofy bravado from the first movie into a sense of genuine loss is devastatingly effective.

Improbably, this is not the only moment in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again that works, and the movie is a significant improvement on its predecessor. Then again, it’s difficult to state just how incompetently made the first movie is. Director Phyllida Lloyd, a wildly successful theater director who helped originate the stage show, had no feel for the rhythm of film musicals, cutting seemingly at random, indulging the screamiest possible performances, and choreographing big numbers with little more direction than: “Run this way! Now that way!” 

Lloyd declined to return for the follow-up, and new writer-director Ol Parker has a surer hand with the medium. The material that should feel redundant, following the adventures of young Donna as she meets the three suitors who grow into Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgård, is sweeter and more adorable that it needs to be, mostly through three or four zippy musical numbers featuring the sunny James. Those sequences, utilizing a mixture of corner-sweeping on ABBA Gold and shameless reprisals, aren’t any less silly or synthetic, but they manage to get down to the business of entertaining the audience, rather than loudly insisting that they’re having a great time. That sense of showmanship and the air of melancholy that hangs over the weaker present-day material make for, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, a quieter and more reflective Mamma Mia!

Even so, the best production numbers are out of the way around the halfway mark, at which point the movie starts to run out of gas. Its very last moments are moving—I teared up, and I think the original movie is garbage—but they’re preceded by a self-regarding (and terribly acted!) Cher cameo and a lot of additional plot business that has no bearing on anything. What the movie really misses, around that 65-minute mark, is Brosnan, blowing the roof off the joint. His appearances in the back half of the movie are perfunctory, giving us just a few glimpses of his peerless fake laugh. By the time Cher grabs the mic for a fine but emotionally inert rendition of an ABBA favorite, she’s only strengthening the case for Brosnan as the accidental soul of this accidental series.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again  is out in theatres July 20.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Upbeat, silly ABBA musical has sexual innuendos.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Allusions to infidelity, abandonment, and sexual i

Characters stick pretty closely to archetypes ("th

Men and women yell at each other about past disagr

Sexual innuendo in song lyrics and conversations (

Occasional mild profanity: "son of a bitch," "crap

A few labels: Duke University T-shirt, logos for G

Characters drink alcohol, act drunk. Some cigar sm

Parents need to know that Mamma Mia! is a 2008 movie inspired by the musical inspired by the music of Swedish 1970s hit-makers ABBA. This lightweight, sun-kissed musical will likely appeal to the teen girls (and their moms) who make up much of the fan base of the Broadway musical it's based on. Language is…

Positive Messages

Allusions to infidelity, abandonment, and sexual indiscretions. A daughter lies to her mom. Otherwise, truly earnest and warmhearted, with strong themes of friendship and parent/child bonds.

Positive Role Models

Characters stick pretty closely to archetypes ("the writer," "the cougar," "the banker," and so on), despite outward appearances of strong, independent-minded women who are seemingly determined to make their own way in the world. Most of the lead characters must come to terms with past sexual indiscretions.

Violence & Scariness

Men and women yell at each other about past disagreements and misunderstandings; a mother and daughter argue.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Sexual innuendo in song lyrics and conversations (for example, a hand drill is waved around in a suggestive way to signal sexual intercourse). One character is very open about her cougar-like sensibilities, preying on a younger man and vice versa. Lots of reminiscing about sexual escapades of the past. One scene shows a man's naked backside, though not in a sexual context. A sex toy is seen briefly during a dance sequence. Quick kiss.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Occasional mild profanity: "son of a bitch," "crap," as well as UK terms such as "bollocks" and "bugger." Frequent sexual insinuations. A woman points at her friend's breasts and asks, "Where did you get these?"

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A few labels: Duke University T-shirt, logos for Greek taxis. And, of course, the entire movie helps promote ABBA songs (and also the Broadway musical the movie is based on).

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters drink alcohol, act drunk. Some cigar smoking. References to marijuana.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Mamma Mia! is a 2008 movie inspired by the musical inspired by the music of Swedish 1970s hit-makers ABBA. This lightweight, sun-kissed musical will likely appeal to the teen girls (and their moms) who make up much of the fan base of the Broadway musical it's based on. Language is quite tame overall ("ass," "bitch," UK terms such as "bollocks" and "bugger"), but sexual innuendoes do fly -- there are plenty in the ABBA song lyrics alone -- and one of the main characters is a woman who gets pregnant but doesn't know who her baby's father is. A sex toy is seen briefly during a dance sequence. There's a quick kiss between two men. There's also a brief, nonsexual glimpse of a man's bare butt and a fair amount of drinking, but it's mostly in the context of everyone having fun on a Greek island, and it's all pretty social in nature. Characters also drink throughout and often appear to be drunk. Expect references to marijuana. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (53)
• Kids say (174)

Based on 53 parent reviews

Not My Favorite, But Great Film

What's the story.

In MAMMA MIA!, with her wedding fast approaching, 20-year-old Sophie ( Amanda Seyfried ) does the unthinkable: She invites three men -- Sam ( Pierce Brosnan ), Bill ( Stellan Skarsgård ), and Harry ( Colin Firth ) -- from her mother Donna's ( Meryl Streep ) past to the Greek isle-set festivities without telling her. Donna dated all three one long-ago summer, and one of them is Sophie's father, though she's not sure which one. But Sophie is convinced that one of them should walk her down the aisle, even if it means wreaking havoc just before the big day.

Is It Any Good?

Based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name, this movie is a frothy concoction that manages to entertain despite the fact that it's disjointed, nonsensical, and fairly cheesy. Onstage, you can forgive all these shortcomings -- the music, the dancing, and the theatricality of it all sweep you away. But on-screen it's a more hazardous bet. Though some of the musical numbers soar -- "Dancing Queen," of course, and the infectious "Mamma Mia!" -- many more hit the wrong note. Although Streep is formidable (who else can meld camp with believable emotion?) and actually sings quite prettily, the dance numbers might make you laugh in all the wrong places. Seeing Streep in Spandex, her straggly mane tossing about, is a little like witnessing your mom let loose at a party after one too many drinks: Your heart soars at her joie de vivre, but you also kind of want her to stop. Still, Streep's acting chops serve her well; Christine Baranski , who plays Donna's cougar-y sidekick, also fares well, and Julie Walters is just plain fun. Brosnan is dashing as always, though singing isn't his strong suit. And Firth and Skarsgård seem like afterthoughts.

In the end, it's Seyfried who frankly saves the whole enterprise. Her Sophie beseeches you to check your judgments at the door. Her voice is outstanding, managing to ground the silliness of ABBA's greatest hits. And the island? It's so heavenly that it mitigates the film's flaws. So what if it's all a little off? In the end, Mamma Mia! manages to move you with its unabashed exuberance. The eponymous tune does, after all, go: "Mamma Mia, how can I resist you?" For a few moments, anyway, it's the 1970s all over again. Bring on the disco ball.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about who Mamma Mia! is meant to appeal to -- older fans who've been listening to ABBA since they first hit it big, or younger folks who might be familiar with the Broadway show. Do musicals translate well to the big screen? What makes them successful (or not)? What messages does the movie send about relationships and marriage?

Musicals have been a film genre almost since the days in which movies first had sound. What are some of the elements of musicals, not only in terms of performers singing but also in terms of production values, choreography, and style?

Do you think the frequent sexual allusions and insinuations are necessary for the movie? Why, or why not?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 16, 2008
• On DVD or streaming : December 15, 2008
• Cast : Amanda Seyfried , Meryl Streep , Pierce Brosnan
• Director : Phyllida Lloyd
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Musical
• Topics : Friendship , Music and Sing-Along
• Run time : 108 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : some sex-related comments
• Last updated : April 17, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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7 best Mother's Day movies to celebrate moms

Watch these great comedies with the mothers in your life

What film should you watch on Mother’s Day? If you’re spending May 12 with your mom, or you are a mom, the answer is simple: Whatever film the lady wants! If the holiday is one of remembrance for you now, choose a film that you know was one of your mom’s favorites. Still need inspiration? You could opt for a classic tearjerker like 1983’s “Terms of Endearment” or 1993’s “The Joy Luck Club," or something unexpected, such as 2022 Best Picture winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once." When in doubt, though, we’d go for some laughs. Here are seven mother-loving comedies you can stream today.

It turns out, the regular moms ARE the cool moms in this riotous 2016 comedy. Facing a divorce and the fate of forever being taken advantage of by her boss and her kids, mom Amy (Mila Kunis) finally puts her own sanity first and stops saying “yes” to every demand society (and the PTA) places on her. She’s soon joined in the rebellion, first by her new polar-opposite besties, husband-pleaser Kiki (Kristen Bell) and lovably selfish single mom Carla (Kathryn Hahn), and later by other mothers who want the reign of judgmental PTA dictator Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate) to end. 

One person Amy will be making more time for, however: Jessie (Jay Hernandez), a single dad who truly sees her and wants to please her. (Wink!)

Rent/buy on Amazon or Apple

'Baby Boom'

Diane Keaton earned a Golden Globe nomination portraying self-proclaimed tough, cold career woman J.C. Wiatt, who inherits a toddler, Elizabeth, from a distant relative and ends up buying a money pit in picturesque Vermont. In other words, the 1987 rom-com, co-written by genre fave Nancy Meyers and director Charles Shyer, is like the best Hallmark movie you’ve ever seen. J.C. struggles to relax, then makes it her mission to get out of the moth-eaten town. The goal becomes more attainable when her gourmet baby food idea takes off, and more complicated when her love-hate relationship with local vet Dr. Cooper (a dreamy Sam Shepard) heats up.

Watch on Tubi , Pluto TV and The Roku Channel

• Bonus tip: Make it a double-feature with 2003’s “Something’s Gotta Give” ( Netflix ) , another Meyer rom-com starring Keaton as a Hamptons-based playwright torn between the playboy record exec (Jack Nicholson) her daughter brings home and the younger doctor (Keanu Reeves) who treats him for a heart attack.

'Otherhood'

This one’s worth it just to watch Angela Bassett’s character, widow Carol, get a “Moonstruck”-style makeover and crash her son’s (Sinqua Walls) work party. As the 2019 R-rated comedy begins, Carol and her best friends Gillian (Patricia Arquette) and Helen (Felicity Huffman) realize they’ve all been essentially forgotten on Mother’s Day. They pile into a car and drive to New York City to storm the apartments of their respective sons: potential-squandering ladies’ man Matt (Sinqua Walls), love-challenged writer Daniel (Jake Hoffman), and gay secret-keeper Paul (Jake Lacy). 

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The women are determined to figure out where their relationships with their boys went wrong, but before the end of the film, they’ll also have to confront some truths about themselves and repair their imploded friendship. The leading ladies are more than up to the challenge of drunken dancing and difficult conversations.

Watch on Netflix

'Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!'

The equally infectious sequel to 2008’s jukebox musical “Mamma Mia!” tells two stories: In present day, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) prepares to open the renovated Hotel Bella Donna in memory of her late mother (Meryl Streep), which reunites her with her three dads (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgard) and Donna’s best friends (the still fabulous Christine Baranski and Julie Walters). At the same time, flashbacks unfold young Donna’s (Lily James) origin story on the Greek island and that little paternity issue. 

Standout numbers include the heartbreak-healer “Mamma Mia,” the seaworthy-spectacle “Dancing Queen,” the gloriously dramatic “Fernando” (from Cher and Andy Garcia), and the pitch-perfect for Mother’s Day “My Love, My Life” (featuring Streep’s moving return). If you’ve lost a parent, have tissues handy. 

Watch on Prime Video

'Crazy Rich Asians'

Speaking of spectacles, rom-coms don’t get more visually stunning than this 2018 blockbuster based on the novel of the same name. NYU economics professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) travels to Singapore with her boyfriend, Nick Young (Henry Golding), for his best friend’s wedding of the century. She doesn’t know until they arrive just how outrageously wealthy Nick’s family is, or that his mother, Eleanor (a most formidable Michelle Yeoh), had expected the sought-after bachelor to move back home by now and will never think Rachel is “enough” for him. Everything about the film feels fresh, from the setting and unapologetic opulence to the way Rachel handles herself during a bachelorette party gone “Godfather” and in her climactic Mahjong showdown with Eleanor. 

The supporting cast is also perfection, particularly Awkwafina as Rachel’s supportive pal/high-society sensei Peik Lin, Gemma Chan as Nick’s kindhearted fashionplate cousin Astrid, and Nico Santos as the self-proclaimed rainbow sheep of the family Oliver. 

Watch on Max

'The Sound of Music'

Is this Best Picture winner from 1965 beloved enough to become standard viewing for two holidays? No offense to Christmas, but Mother’s Day may be more appropriate. Aspiring nun Maria (Julie Andrews) is sent from her abbey to the home of widowed naval officer Captain von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) to be the next governess for his seven unwelcoming children. She wins them—and their father—over with her feisty faith in play clothes and music, and the strength and empathy of her convictions.

So many of us saw this movie for the first time as children and focused on learning the list of “My Favorite Things” and the yodeling in “The Lonely Goatherd.” We desperately wanted a romantic gazebo in the backyard because of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” and “Something Good.” But watching the film as an adult, and understanding just how brave and dangerous the captain’s decision to flee Austria was for his family, you have a profound appreciation for “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” and “Edelweiss.” Discuss it.

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'Mother of the Bride'

Recently released on Netflix, "Mother of the Bride" is a solid selection if you want a rom-com that neither of you has seen before and you suspect that mom would also enjoy seeing Benjamin Bratt naked (my mother did!). Brooke Shields stars as renowned geneticist Lana, who gets a shock when she arrives at a resort in Thailand for the hastily-planned wedding of her brand ambassador daughter Emma (Miranda Cosgrove): The groom, RJ (Sean Teale), is the son of Will (Bratt), Lana’s good-time college sweetheart who broke her heart before she met her late husband.

The former flames’ reunion involves some Grade-A comedic sexual tension, a hint of jealousy (Chad Michael Murray plays a vacationing colleague who happens to have eyes for Lana), and a fair amount of scene-stealing by Rachael Harris as Lana’s deadpan sister, Janice. Wilson Cruz and Michael McDonald also provide laughs as Will’s brother and brother-in-law. After the heartfelt resolution, stick around through the credits for a choreographed cast number that will get you in the mood for wedding season.

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After spending more than a decade as a reporter and writer at  Entertainment Weekly  and EW.com, Mandi served as an editor at Yahoo Entertainment and  TV Guide Magazine . As a freelance writer, her work has appeared in  The New York Times ,  TV Insider , Vulture, Thrillist, Billboard.com, ArchitecturalDigest.com, HBO.com, Yahoo.com, and now Tom’s Guide. She is an expert on Hallmark movies, Shark Week, and setting an alarm to watch the Olympics live.

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Review: This ‘Mamma Mia!’ at Nederlander Theatre comes with the Donna of all Donnas

I ’ve reviewed the same original production of “Mamma Mia!” 14 times from London to Las Vegas (although not to Monaco) and New York to Chicago, using up every last ABBA Easter egg in my writer’s quiver of mixed metaphors. I’ve had many. I’m a huge ABBA fan.

This time, I had the soul-chilling experience of staring out from Row J at a Sophie (the charming Alisa Melendez) who I suspect was not yet born when I first rolled into the Prince Edward Theatre in London in 1999 to watch this clever new idea of inserting pop songs into a fresh narrative, only to find I was watching something with a snorkel fetish that sent an audience into delirium. It would go on to spinoff multiple movies, a dystopian U.K. attraction called “Mamma Mia The Party,” and a total gross in excess of the GNP of many smaller nations.

“Mamma Mia!,” not unlike this critic, is perpetually stuck in 1999, otherwise none of its internal dates work. If they tried to update it, Donna the Dynamo — doing the “dot, dot, dot” in 1979 with who-knows-who and spawning Sophie — would now be 70.  Although I have to say, and, as one who appreciates the performative value of experience, I note this with affectionate and admiration, the three potential dads in the new touring company (Rob Marnell, Jim Newman and Victor Wallace) are, ahem, more mature than used to be the case.

So what, you may wonder, took me back to the Nederlander Theatre on Thursday night?  Sure, it’s important to check on the quality of these shows so that longtime fans who now want to introduce this show to their teenagers (which many were doing Thursday) can feel secure that the “Mamma Mia!” experience has not shrunk like its signature bell-bottoms. In one of my favorite news items of all time, it was revealed in 2023 that ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus (he of the private island) and Sir Ian McKellen would be knitting, yes knitting, stagewear for Kylie Minogue for her concert residency at The Venetian Las Vegas. When you’ve created the greatest Euro pop catalog of all time, future challenges are hard to find.

Anyway, the show has a fresh cast, an especially fine supporting pair of comic personalities in Jalynn Steele and Carly Sakolove as Tanya and Rosie and all its union contracts in place. Given how well I know this show, I entertain myself by listening to see how much freedom the performers are given to vary a note or a line reading: only here and there. But they choose well.

None of that was why I went, though. I rolled in primarily to hear Christine Sherrill (as Donna) sing “The Winner Takes it All,” the ABBA breakup song that they recorded as an uptempo disco-influenced arrangement, but that this show brilliantly turned into a an eleven o’clock power ballad.

And, dear reader, I did not leave disappointed.

Chicago theater fans know that Sherrill long was one of our own, appearing in venues large and small with her outsized talent shining wheresoever she played, prior to her getting a big break in the last tour of “Les Miserables.” Now in her vocal prime, Sherrill is a superb musical theater star with a fabulous voice and a Chicago-style intensity to her scene-work. Yes, even in “Mamma Mia!” This Donna dove deep, and I don’t mean into the Aegean Sea.

Sherrill’s Donna was a Donna of Donnas. (Did I mention 14 times? I know whereof I speak.) When she sings “the gods may throw a dice, their minds as cold as ice,” there’s a darn thunderclap inside the theater. It’s like Björn and Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid have flown from Sweden in some great chariot and descended onto Randolph Street to witness the sublime.

It all begs a question, Why has Christine Sherrill not yet had a major leading role on Broadway?

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

[email protected]

Review: “Mamma Mia!” (3 stars)

When: Through May 19

Where: Nederlander Theatre, 24 W. Randoph St.

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Tickets: $52.50-$137.50 at www.broadwayinchicago.com

©2024 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Why Didn't Meryl Streep Fully Return for Mamma Mia 2?

Meryl Streep was iconic as Donna Sheridan in the first Mamma Mia movie. So, why didn't she reprise her role when the sequel rolled around?

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Why is meryl streep not in mamma mia 2, meryl streep was still involved in mamma mia 2, will meryl streep return for mamma mia 3.

• Meryl Streep initially had no interest in a Mamma Mia! sequel but was eventually convinced by producers' idea for a prequel following a younger version of Donna Sheridan.
• Streep's character was killed off in the sequel to allow the story to be told through prequel flashbacks, where Lily James portrayed a younger version of Donna.
• Despite her character's death, Meryl Streep is willing to return for Mamma Mia 3 if the film is ever green-lit.

Meryl Streep, a Hollywood heavy hitter, has the resume to pick and choose her roles, and she has a reputation for taking on fresh and challenging parts. That's likely why the part of Donna Sheridan in Mamma Mia! appealed to her. Playing a mother with a complicated past who occasionally breaks out in song isn't something that comes around every day. However, sequels are more complicated (as in the case of Downton Abbey: A New Era ) because Streep isn't as passionate about them. This preference possibly influenced why Meryl Streep didn't fully return in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again .

The widespread success of the original Mamma Mia! begged for a sequel, but Streep and many of the other original cast members were initially uninterested in a Mamma Mia! 2 . Director Ol Parker explained , saying, "There was always a massive desire for a sequel. The studio couldn't have wanted it more, given how much money the original made. But immediately, there was just a struggle. Not every story needs another chapter. So they couldn't really find a proper version that actually made dramatic sense."

Updated by Katie Doll on May 3, 2024: Mamma Mia! 3 may not be in official production yet, but many cast members have expressed their interest in returning to the hit musical franchise if given the opportunity. The ABBA-inspired extravaganza has won many fans over the years, not only in its run on Broadway, but also in the 2008 film adaptation and its 2018 sequel. However, after starring as Donna Sheridan in the original film, Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep mostly sat out of the sequel, leaving audiences to wonder if she would even return should a third film actually happen.

The Academy Award-winning Actor Was Initially Uninterested in a Sequel, But Loved the Idea of a Prequel-Sequel

10 musicals to watch if you like mamma mia.

Meryl Streep may not have been interested in starring in being a part of the Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again cast, but writer Richard Curtis' daughter gave him the idea to write a movie woven with the threads of a prequel . By having Donna die between the end of the first movie and the start of the second, they could tell more of Donna's story via flashbacks . Curtis felt the movie flowed best that way anyway, describing it as "the most meaningful and emotional and impactful way to tell that story."

• Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again was released on July 12, 2018.
• The second Mamma Mia! film has a 79% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
• Audiences gave Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again a 66% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Killing Streep's character off also allowed the creators to bring her a role of just one minor scene playing a ghost and singing just a couple of songs. Because of the prequel flashbacks, the rest of Donna's presence in the movie was played by Pam & Tommy 's Lily James , who portrayed a younger version of the character. Thankfully, Streep was intrigued by the concept and agreed to do the film, if only in a minor role.

Streep's Involvement in the Sequel Convinced Other Cast Members to Return

'i just wanted to have some fun': meryl streep asked to be on only murders in the building.

While Meryl Streep wasn't actively involved in most of the production of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again , her separation from the franchise certainly wasn't a result of a lack of interest on the actress's part. "I think she felt that she liked the idea of leaving this to the younger ones, and she wanted to be involved, but she wasn't gonna take on such a big role," the franchise's creator, Judy Craymer, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter . Craymer went on, saying "I think that helped explore the emotional heft of what director Ol Parker wrote in the fact that it's a story of life and marriage and loss and love."

• Like the original film, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again features hit songs from ABBA's discography, including "Mamma Mia," "Dancing Queen," "Waterloo," "Fernando," and many more.
• Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again adds several notable actors to its ensemble cast, including Lily James and Andy Garcia.
• Unlike the 2008 film, Here We Go Again is not based on any source material, but rather features an original story.

Once Streep was on board with this new and exciting take on the original story, the rest of the original cast trickled back in as well. Streep was the face of Mamma Mia! when the original movie came out in 2008. Developing a follow-up that would both do justice to the first story and entice their original leading lady back took the creators a decade, leading to complications.

Craymer told Entertainment Weekly that Streep "was hesitant about doing another film because she doesn't typically do sequels." It makes sense for an Academy Award-winning actor to feel this way, as Streep probably always wants to keep her filmography fresh for her career. Thus, the idea of a prequel and sequel melded together was born. Streep took the leap and made Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again happen even without putting in lots of screen time.

Although a Third Film Has Yet to be Confirmed, Meryl Streep Has Expressed Interest in Reprising Her Role as Donna

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Despite not returning for a meatier role in Here We Go Again! , Meryl Streep is willing to return for Mamma Mia 3 , according to a 2023 interview with Vogue . The Oscar-winning actress voiced her excitement to return to the franchise despite her character's death. "I told Judy [Craymer] if she could figure out a way to reincarnate Donna, I'm into that," the actress delightfully explained, going on to playfully suggest that she play Donna's twin sister in a soap opera-like twist.

Given Streep's statement, it seems safe to assume that audiences will once again see Donna's return in some way, shape, or form if a third Mamma Mia! film ever happens. Donna could possibly return again in flashbacks, this time as a new mother to Sophie. Her experiences as a mother to a newborn or young child could mirror Sophie's role as a first-time mother to her son, whom she gave birth to at the end of the second film.

• The original Mamma Mia! musical opened on April 6, 1999, at the Prince Edward Theatre in London.
• The original Broadway cast for Mamma Mia! included Louise Pitre as Donna Sheridan, Judy Kaye as Rosie, and Karen Mason as Tanya.
• Mamma Mia! was on Broadway for over a decade, running between 2001 and 2013.

For a franchise with an A-list ensemble cast like Mamma Mia 's, it can be difficult to get everyone back for an additional film. Nevertheless, producer Judy Craymer seems determined to do exactly that, revealing to Variety in late 2023 that she was already working on a script for the film. Streep's assertion that she would return no doubt helps raise excitement for a third installment in the jukebox musical franchise, as viewers prepare to visit Kalokairi's beautiful shores one more time.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is available to stream on Prime Video.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

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Five years after the events of Mamma Mia! (2008), Sophie prepares for the grand reopening of the Hotel Bella Donna as she learns more about her mother's past.

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What’s on TV This Week: Met Gala and ‘Wedding Crashers’

E! covers all the looks of the first Monday in May. And Paramount airs the classic buddy movie.

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By Shivani Gonzalez

For those who still haven’t cut the cord, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, May 6-12. Details and times are subject to change.

MET GALA: LIVE FROM THE RED CARPET 6 p.m. on E ! Some people celebrate the Super Bowl, some celebrate Derby Day. And others celebrate the Met Gala, the benefit ball for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute on the first Monday in May. This year, the exhibition is “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” and the dress code is “The Garden of Time.” Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Hemsworth and Bad Bunny are hosts of the event, alongside, of course, Anna Wintour. Live coverage from E! will feature the host Ross Mathews interviewing attendees on the red carpet and at the Mark Hotel and the Pierre Hotel beforehand.

OMG FASHUN 9 p.m. on E! Julia Fox is following up her memoir “Down the Drain,” from last year, with this sustainable fashion competition show. Teaming up with Law Roach , the mastermind stylist behind Zendaya’s incredible press looks for “Challengers,” each episode features three designers creating outfits with Fox as their muse.

WEDDING CRASHERS (2005) 10:30 p.m. on Paramount. Rom-coms are making a come back this year (see: “Anyone But You” ), and I hope buddy comedies are next. Take this classic starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn as divorce mediators who crash weddings to drink for free and meet women. “A wink-wink, nudge-nudge Trojan horse of a story, the film pivots on two cut-rate Lotharios persuasively inhabited by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, who love the ladies, but really and truly, cross their cheating hearts, just want a nice girl to call wife,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The New York Times .

BRANDY HELLVILLE & THE CULT OF FAST FASHION 8 p.m. on HBO. If you were a girl growing up in the 2000s and 2010s, you probably had a piece of Brandy Melville clothing in your closet. The brand was marketed as “one size fits all,” but that one size was … tiny. This documentary dives deeper into the company’s work environment and discriminatory practices as well as sustainability concerns over cheaply made clothing.

THERESA CAPUTO: RAISING SPIRITS 9 p.m. on Lifetime. Whether or not you believe someone can be a psychic medium, as Theresa Caputo asserts she is, there is something appealing about watching her help people feel connected to family or friends who have died.

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE 8 p.m. on TCM. Another film genre we need more of: moody teen comes to well-to-do town and shakes things up. And that is what we have with this movie: James Dean plays Jim Stark, who moves to a nice neighborhood in Los Angeles, hangs out with the offbeat kid (Sal Mineo) and falls for Judy (Natalie Wood), who is of course dating Buzz (Corey Allen), the toughest guy at school. “Convincing or not in motivations, this tale of tempestuous kids and their weird ways of conducting their social relations is tense with explosive incidents,” Bosley Crowther wrote in his review for The Times.

BELOW DECK MARATHON starting at 7 p.m. on Bravo. We are currently in the “Below Deck” era of Captain Kerry Titheradge, with Fraser Olender as the chief steward, but before them, Kate Chastain was the mainstay. This marathon begins with Season 2 when Chastain, as chief stew, and Captain Lee Rosbach were one of Bravo’s most dynamic duos. Come for the crew drama and annoying guests, stay for the daydreams of sailing on a charter yacht.

ABBA: AGAINST THE ODDS 8 p.m. on the CW. Mamma Mia, am I excited for this documentary about the Swedish pop group ABBA. Released for the 50th anniversary of their album “Waterloo,” the film starts with their win at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 and includes archival footage and new interviews with the band as they discuss some of their biggest hits.

TIME 100: THE WORLD’S MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE 10 p.m. on ABC. What do Dua Lipa, Dev Patel, Mark Cuban, Patrick Mahomes and Tory Burch have in common? They are all on Time magazine’s most influential people list of 2024. This broadcast of the gala honoring the recipients, which took place last month in New York City, features performances by Lipa and Fantasia Barrino, as well as appearances by Maya Rudolph, Kelley Robinson and 21 Savage. Taraji P. Henson is the host, and Michael J. Fox receives the annual Time Impact Award.

Shivani Gonzalez is a news assistant at The Times who writes a weekly TV column and contributes to a variety of sections. More about Shivani Gonzalez

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