Mama Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)

'Mama Mia! Here We Go Again' is the sequel to the massive hit (and a massive hit in its own right) 2008 film adaptation of the 1999 jukebox musical featuring the songs of ABBA. I'm going to get this out of the way and say yes this is the better movie. It benefits from established characters and not being composed for the stage, so this is a much loser and I thought funner movie.

It has more of a story as well, even if we have heard much of it before. The framing story is set 5 years after the events of the first movie. Meryl Steeps's Donna has passed away from unspecified cause the year before, and Amanda Seyfried's Sophie has had the hotel remodeled in her honor and is prepering for a grand re-opening, which will reunite the characters from the first film.

The second story is a flashback to 1979/1980 and concerns a young Donna's first coming to the island and her relationships with Sophie's three possible father's. This part of the film is made by the luminous presence of Lily James as the young Donna, I found her much more believable as this free spirited character then I ever did Streep. I also thought that the musical numbers in both the flash back and present day sequnces were better stagged then in the first film. 

Featuring a large and likable cast and finally working in my favorite ABBA song 'Fernando', I had a much better time with this movie then then the first, even though at heart they're not all that different. I watched this yesterday evening and perhaps there was something in the air that night.**1/2