"Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"

The movie’s subtitle read my mind when I first heard the announcement that a sequel was coming a year ago. I loved the first movie. I don’t care what you say about Pierce Brosnan’s singing abilities. He was still charming. I think a sequel is just unnecessary.

This movie follows a carbon copy plot similar to the first film. A big celebration set at the crumbling hotel featuring three dads scattered across the globe and someone from Donna’s past. That’s it. That’s all you need to know about the plot. But I want to get to the juicy parts. I am a stickler for continuity, and this movie is my newest victim.

Donna is dead. We don’t how or why. She just died. Until an article surfaced two days ago with details on Donna's death, which can be viewed here.

The movie is set five years later even though it was released ten years later.

Donna and the Dynamos were apparently a high school band, and they didn’t tour the world. So, what happened that night in Glasgow?

I was led to believe, based on the context of the first movie, that Tanya and Rosie never really met the dads until the events of the first movie; they only knew what Donna told them. In this one, they seemed to know Sam, Harry, and Bill for at least five minutes, long enough for Rosie to have a twenty-year-old crush on Bill.

The timeline of how Donna met the three dads is f*cked out of proportion. Going back to the diary Sophie stole, the first entry was about Sam, then Bill, then Harry. When they told Sophie about their time with Donna, Harry met Donna in Paris and followed her to Greece. In this movie, Donna is in Paris when a strapping young man with jet-black hair, wearing black pants, and speaking in broken French appeared, I thought it was Sam. But, no, it’s Harry. So Harry meeting Donna in Paris checks out. Then they had their Dot-Dot-Dot moment, and Donna leaves for Kalahari. She misses the ferry but gets help from Bill and his boat. Then they had their Dot-Dot-Dot moment, and Donna leaves. She discovers an old farmhouse that poses a striking resemblance to the hotel that now stands in its place. Let’s pause right there for a second. In the first movie, Sam said he drew up the hotel on the back of a menu. When he left, I thought Donna took that design and built the hotel. But it turns out that it was a rundown farmhouse an old lady in the village let her stay in.

On the night she discovers the farmhouse, she finds a horse trapped the barn. She goes to find help and who happens to be zipping down the road but Sam Carmichael. They have their Dot-Dot-Dot moment, in which Donna starts to write her diary. Then Sam leaves to get married, and Bill turns up again. During that time, Sam tried to return but the old lady and Tanya and Rosie told him that Donna was with another man. Then we see Harry buying a ticket to the ferry, but he misses the ferry and decides not to pursue. So Harry’s entry in the diary should have never been written, especially when Bill leaves for some boating race, and Donna finds out she’s pregnant.

But it’s not just about getting their story straight, there’s tons of new movie to pick over.

You can also go ahead put this movie on the list of movies where the trailer lied to us. The trailers all showed Tanya and Rosie telling Sophie how Donna really met the three dads. Instead, we get a kind of unnecessary backstory sandwiched into this already two stars of a movie. In the final scene, Sophie is taking her own child to get christened and the montage of Donna giving a scary ass birth keeps butting in while a lighthearted song kept playing in the background. I was absolutely terrified. And they were going to be happy and sing about it? It turned out all right and Sophie was born, but DAMN!!!!!!

What happened to Sophie’s friends? And Sky’s? Neither Sophie nor Sky even received a text on their whereabouts.
Rosie and Bill are split because Bill couldn’t keep it in his pants, I guess, but they get back together because they both can’t get over Donna’s death.

Tanya’s hot Jamaican boyfriend is nowhere to be seen, but my mother mentioned that she’s a serial bride, so I guess that answers that question.

Sky is still a dick. I’m sorry, I hated this guy in the first movie. I super hate him in this one. He goes away to New York to learn how to properly run a hotel. Donna ran the hotel for 15 years, and this is five years later. Not once did it bother them before on how to run a hotel? We are still unsure if Sophie and Sky ever got married since they ran away from their wedding like they’re Elaine and Benjamin. I’d dump his ass if I were Sophie. Go full Donna and raise the child on your own.

Remember when I had a problem with Blade Runner 2049 billing Harrison Ford as a costar even though he showed up at the end of the movie? This movie did the same with both Cher and Meryl Streep. Cher shows up to the party to be a grandmother. Sophie isn’t pleased that Sky had called and invited her, but then all is forgiven when we find out Sophie’s new assistant, Terry Benedict, was an old lover of Cher’s. The movie missed an opportunity to make him Donna’s missing father, but then again, making Cher Meryl Streep’s mother barely made any sense.

Going back to the christening, I buy that Donna’s spirit would show up. I buy that she would sing. I also buy that Sophie could see her. But then you had to go and wreck the moment by having them sing together. No one else can see Donna. So now Sophie has gone insane and needs medical attention immediately.

The only redeeming aspect the movie has is that it was a fun movie, just not a good movie. It was nice to see the dads still being bros together, especially Bill and Harry doing the Jack and Rose pose on the ferry. Aside from Andy Garcia standing like a doofus, the “Fernando” number was the best of the whole movie.

The movie used a lot of match cuts. A match cut is the end of the first clip matches with the beginning of the next clip. For example, the “One of Us” sequence featured the camera tracking from Sky’s apartment to Sophie’s room. It was also used to show a parallel between Donna and Sophie examining the hotel, both rundown and restored.

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Released On: July 20, 2018
Rating: PG-13
Stars: Lily Collins, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Meryl Streep
Director: Ol Parker
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.2/10

Videos
Everything Wrong With Mamma Mia in 15 Minutes or Less
CinemaSins - Everything Wrong With Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again