Mamma Mia sequel is a witless, cringey mess

OK, THE good things first.

Because there are so many problems with Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, let’s highlight the movie’s positive notes upfront.

Pierce Brosnan is not asked to sing much, Cher sounds spectacular belting out Fernando, Colin Firth still cuts a fine figure in a well-tailored suit and Christine Baranski is a goddess who should be worshipped every time she moves a muscle.

Lily James as the young Donna, a role played by Meryl Streep in the first film, is amazing and she has an effervescent energy that pops off the screen. This is a proper showcase for her oodles of charisma and a real sign that she is a star — the old school, triple-threat kind.

Also, it’s better than the first Mamma Mia but that’s such a low bar to clear.

Now for the rest.

Christ. What a mess. A witless, cringey mess.

Set five years after the first film (and there’s a whole timeline issue we’ll get to later), Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is now 25 years old and days from fulfilling her mother Donna’s dream of turning that farmhouse on that fictional Greek island into a luxury hotel.

Donna (Meryl Streep) died a year ago (how is never explained) and half the movie takes place in flashback, following the young Donna (James) right after graduating from Oxford in 1979 and her journey to Kalokairi and meeting those three guys — Harry (Hugh Skinner), Bill (Josh Dylan) and Sam (Jeremy Irvine) — at various points on her journey.

Back in the present day, the hotel’s grand opening is threatened by a storm and the fact Harry (Colin Firth), Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) and partner Sky (Dominic Cooper) won’t be attending.

The flashbacks are much more palatable, largely thanks to James’ luminous performance, than the awkward present day scenes which only act as a lazy framing device you resent having to cut back to.

Movie adaptations of stage musicals have a very specific appeal among a very specific audience. If you like cheesy, frustratingly unrealistic stories and unearned emotional moments, or you’re an ABBA super-fan, then there’s no dissuading you from seeing Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again anyway. You may as well go book your ticket now.

But if you expect your movies to resemble, well, a movie, then this will only disappoint.

The most glaring flaw with this work is how incredibly stagey it is, as if someone just pointed the camera at dress rehearsals for a stage musical, packaged it with some close-ups and called it cinema. It’s really not.

It doesn’t help that so much of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is filmed on a soundstage and the CGI backgrounds are distractingly obvious. Other than the scenes that are filmed on location — the charmingly choreographed sequence with young Donna and Bill on a boat is a highlight — it all feels very flat, there’s rarely much energy, let along an infectious one.

The sound mixing is inexplicably off sometimes — James almost always sounds better when she’s not backed by a musical track.

There’s also a large dance number set to Dancing Queen that takes in most of the main present day cast and as the camera pans from one person to another, the vocals are bafflingly mixed that it starts to sound like a weird all-in karaoke session where the singing keeps dropping out as you’re passing the mic down the line to the next very drunk person.

Many of the song choices lack oomph — the first movie having plumbed most of the big-hitters, some of which are repeated here — and features many lesser-known ABBA songs that your average person won’t recognise.

That much-vaunted Cher cameo is nothing more than cheap stunt casting. She may sound incredible but her lack of facial and overall body movement is bizarrely distracting. Plus, she’s always just Cher (albeit in a Joan Rivers wig), at no point does she feel like she’s actually playing a character in the movie.

Meanwhile, the timeline inconsistencies are ridiculous. The flashbacks take place in 1979, which puts Sophie’s birth around 1980. But the present day scenes are clearly our era with telltale recent iPhones, tablets and a late model Mercedes G-Class that inexplicably show up on the island, which should make Sophie almost 40 years old.

But if Sophie really is supposed to be 25, then her three dads shouldn’t be more than in their early 50s, and, not to be unkind, but Skarsgard and Brosnan (both in their mid-60s) just ain’t passing. And (this will make more sense if you see the movie) Andy Garcia was three years old in 1959.

You could chalk up that kind of lackadaisical plotting to how little it’s supposed to matter in the grand scheme of a cornball musical, but it’s endemic of a movie that just doesn’t seem to care, the capper on a dire, whitebread experience best forgotten quickly. Ugh.

Rating: ★★

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is out in cinemas from Thursday, July 20.

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