Genre: Musical
114 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
Director: Ol Parker

This sequel to the moderately successful ‘Mamma Mia’, almost exactly a decade ago, lives upto the promise of its sub-title ‘Here We Go Again’, literally and figuratively.
Set in Greece (although filmed in Croatia) between 1979 and 2005, the sequel attempts to bridge the (generation) gap set by Meryl Streep and company in the 2008 film.
Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) has planned her hotel’s relaunch party a year after her mother Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep) has passed away. Reliving the past, Lily James plays the young Donna, who gets pregnant, setting in motion a ‘Guess the father’ sub-plot — the possible dads being Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård (played by Jeremy Irvine, Hugh Skiner and Josh Dylan respectively when the former three were in their romping youth).
But the major attraction of the film have to be special appearances by Meryl Streep and Cher, who plays Streep’s mum, Ruby.
The film opens to a young Donna (Lily James) perkily singing ‘When I kissed the teacher’) at her convocation even as a dozen prudish, erudite heads of faculty look down upon. Thereon, the film progresses with ABBA songs deposited at strategic intervals, ostensibly to mask a half-baked and nonlinear script and average performances. It’s a film astutely woven around the songs rather than the other way around. Cher chips in with ‘Fernando’ — as only she can — addressed to, and played by Andy Garcia.
The over-abundance of characters and lack of chronology mars what could have been an absorbing musical and a tribute to arguably the greatest pop group of all times. The cinematography and choreography are watchable, with the title song ‘Mamma Mia’ being the pick of the lot.
Diehard fans of the cult group wouldn’t mind spending the couple of hours.