Creative Team:Songs by Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus • Screenplay by Ol Parker, Richard Curtis and Catherine Johnson • Choreography by Anthony Van Laast • Directed by Ol Parker
My Rate: 4 (from 1 to 10)
The Plot:Years after the events of the first movie, Sophie is rebuilding Donna’s hotel and having problems with her husband; she also finds out she’s pregnant. At the same time, we follow Donna’s young life and how she met Sophie´s three fathers.
The Movie:It’s true, here we go again through Abba’s songbook and back to the dreamy Greek island where the action takes place. Unfortunately, this time around, the story is uninteresting, and everything seems kind of forceful.
I love musicals (theatre or movie) but I know that when the characters start to sing and dance it must look as natural as possible and that doesn’t happen here. I don’t believe I’m saying this, but there are too many musical numbers in here and, practically, all of them seem unnatural. There’s no magic here and there isn’t enough fun.
Take for example the university number (anyone remembers GOOD NEWS?), it’s completely out of place and what is Celia Imrie doing at the end of it? And what about the “Waterloo” number? As for Cher’s “Fernando”, it couldn’t be more artificial. Anyway, the best number is the one with the boats arriving on the island with everyone singing and dancing.
But the cast is still having fun, although the young generation lead by the radiant Lily James and Amanda Seyfried aren’t up to the veterans. In fact, the movie only comes really alive as soon as Christine Baranski and Julie Walters appear on the screen. They’re the best thing about this sequel. As for Cher, what happened to her? Strangely, she moves like if she was Frankenstein’s monster. The best new addition is Omid Djalili as the funny border officer.
This still is a feel-good movie, there’s more than a good laugh in here and it’s great for an Abba sing-a-along, but it’s a pale sequel to the original.
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