"Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"---movie review

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I went into seeing “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!” not expecting to be surprised and I was surprised in many ways. First of all I saw Lily James in “Baby Driver” last week and didn’t recognize her and she floored me in this movie. Playing young Donna, the role played in adult hood by Meryl Streep in the first movie, Lily James is startling, beautiful, incandescent and an excellent actor. Another surprise to me was Amanda Seyfried who had never impressed me before in the many movies she has made. In this film she looked different, more sparkling and more real. The biggest surprise for me was Cher! Not that she stole the film for the 15 minutes she was in it but because the first 5 minutes she looked bad, was dressed very unlike Cher and seemed very stiff singing “Fernando” but the last 10 minutes she was dressed as the Cher we know and stole all the closing credits from the rest of the cast, including Streep. A major surprise for me was that I love musicals, especially the old M-G-M, Busby Berkeley choreographed, Astaire & Rogers, Gene Kelley type of movies as along with songs and dances they usually had a good book. “Mamma Mia 2” drove me crazy with a song every two minutes consisting of second tier ABBA songs plus putting in the 3-4 hits that were used in the first “Mamma Mia!” Most songs were sung for absolutely no reason except they were written by ABBA. “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!” is 1 hour and 50 minutes long—go see “Mission: Impossible—Foul Play” and then walk into “Mamma Mia” at the 1 hour and 20 minute point! Movie trailer