In Review: Mama Mia: Here We Go Again!

All most people talk about is how sequels are never as good as the first. Well this movie proved everyone wrong. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is the sequel to hit movie, Mamma Mia! The cast consists of Meryl Streep (grown-up Donna), Lily James (young Donna), Amanda Seyfried (Sophie), and new and old characters. In Mamma Mia! we watch as the main character “Sophie” is getting prepared for her wedding in a few days, and she invites the man that she thinks is her dad. The problem is there are three men that are candidates to the dad position. In a short period of time Donna hooked up with three different men, so when she gets pregnant she has no clue who the father is. So throughout the entire movie the mom, Donna, tried avoiding the men while helping put together her daughter’s wedding. In the end, Sophie doesn’t get married, but Donna does.

Now In Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, the mom has died and Sophie has cleaned up the hotel and is ready for it to be reopened. Sophie and her new dad, Sam Carmichael, are still grieving over Donna’s death while they prepare for the hotel’s opening. Alongside the present part of the story, the movie goes back into the past and see what the hotel looked like before it was a hotel. First, the flashbacks started back when Donna and her two friends graduate from university and think about what they are going to in the future. Young Donna decides that she is just going to do whatever and see where she goes. After that, she meets all of the future dads. In the end, she moved from one guy to the other when she moved to different places. But all of a sudden she found the place where she belonged and found a man that she wanted to stay forever with on a remote island. But after a secret is brought to light, Sam leaves the island. A little bit after this happens Donna started to notice something odd going on. She is pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is. After that, we continue back and forth between past and present with song breaks mixed in.

This movie really did its job at making it as good or even better than the first movie. I adore this series because of the singing and dancing that just pulls everything together. One thing I don’t like is that “Donna” died in the movie. Though even then If Donna hadn’t died the entire story would have lost its emotion and would have made its flashbacks not as important. A reason why some people could dislike this movie is that it is a musical. People may not like random song breaks that interrupt the plot of the movie. Another reason why some people don’t like the movie is because the flashbacks can get confusing and mixed with the present.

Overall, I enjoy both Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Both movies carry different energies that make the experience vary from person to person. I would recommend watching this movie because it mixes together songs and story very well, and shows us how things happened before Donna found Kalokairi, and how Sophie and the rest deal with Donna’s death.