Breezing into cinemas with a cheeky “Here we go again”, the Mamma Mia sequel is here. Turns out it’s a prequel too – so you get “Two for the price of one” as the unused Abba track has it. Sunnyside up though it certainly is, as newcomer Lily James plays free-spirited Donna (Meryl Streep’s) younger self. Back in 1979, fresh from New College Oxford, Donna throws convention to the wind and heads off to the Greek islands for a life of love, loss and Abba’s back catalogue.
Funny, feelgood and vibrantly shot, Here We Go Again is easy on the eye and ear. Having used up the best tunes last time, buoyantly staying afloat with a whimsical who’s-the-dad motif, HWGA is now left with lesser tracks and no plot whatsoever. What is does have is brilliantly casting for the younger selves of Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard and Pierce Brosnan – W1A’s bumbling Hugh Skinner, a Scandi-looking Josh Dylan (Allied) and dark horse Jeremy Irvine (War Horse).
But ‘When all is said and done’, without Lily James’ stupendous performance as the young Donna, this would be a resolutely so-so movie. Yet girl-of the moment James (Cinderella, Darkest Hour, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) has an absolute blast – and so do we whenever she’s on screen. She can move, she can jive and she’s certainly having the time of her life. And although Amanda Seyfried gets to sing ‘Thank you for the music’ in honour of her grown up mother (Streep), it’s certainly a well-earned tribute to James who belts out tunes brilliantly as the younger version – even the unconvincing and iffily-staged Oxford opener ‘When I kissed the teacher’.
Sure you can go with the flow and coast on the comedy of Julie Walters’ Rosie and her wonderfully played teen alter ego (Alexa Davies). You can surf the breeze with a ‘Dancing Queen’ flotilla, as boats burst with exuberant choreography, soaringly shot – with Firth and Skarsgard sharing a Kate-and-Leo Titanic moment. And you can re-live the high point of the first movie with a thrilling rendition of ‘Mamma Mia’.
Yet it’s telling that two of the musical highlights - where the film nudges close to exhilaration - are re-runs from before. Only the superbly chosen ‘My Love My Life’ comes close. Stealing out of nowhere, it’s a gem of a song, one of Abba’s least known, and pitched perfectly - poignant, sweet and likely to cause much blubbing and dabbing of eyes. It’s a lovely end to the movie.
But the archly awful rendition of ‘Waterloo’, set in a French restaurant with waiters cornily dressed as French hussars, is just daft. Meant to be, no doubt. But no. Just no. In the first movie every song seemed natural, organic. Now there’s a forcedness that only goodwill and a wish for a good time makes you tolerate. And while Andy Garcia is quietly excellent as Seyfried’s dignified hotel manager, you just know it’s going to end in pantomimic name-drop entrée to another song – which, when it comes, not long after Cher steps off her helicopter, will have the audience guffawing or just going with it.
HWGA is certainly fast-paced and funny. And the new stuff gets the biggest laughs – Omid Djalili especially steals the show (and the after-the-credits moment) with a cracking cameo as an impertinent, officious passport controller, passing comment on everyone’s photo, hairstyle and appearance.
Richard Curtis came up with the story, such as it is. And you suspect he’s responsible for the racier bits of jokey dialogue. No effs - or weddings or funerals. But there’s some good one liners for Donna’s 1979-era friends. And a sassy, utterly fearless Greek woman (Maria Vacratsis) gets to give a blistering mouthful to one of Donna’s less faithful boyfriends.
With a breezy blend of comedy, frequent tunes (well scored by Anne Dudley), creative choreography and a game cast, HWGA is bomb-proof cinema. And the sweepingly beautiful camerawork looks great on screen. The joie de vivre and playfully knowing tone are clear to see. But it has to work hard to live up to the original. Mamma Mia’s guess-the-father premise was simple and without consequence. Here, in showing how Donna met, and slept with, the three boys, it has to balance a free-spiritedness with quick-succession flings in a family friendly movie.
Step forward Lily James again, who nails the nuances with winning skill. Amanda Seyfried – star of the first – is eclipsed and given little to do. Cher is niftily cast and can still sing like a super trouper. But hats off to James who has to perform her kick-off song in the presence of the guy who co-wrote it, Bjorn Ulvaeus, cameoing as an Oxford don.
And he’d have loved the Oxford reaction to the movie: six teenage girls coming out so enthused, they bounced down the Westgate escalator doing the ‘Dancing Queen’ in full song.