'Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again' review: Sequel is weaker than the original

For some, “Mamma Mia!,” the ABBA jukebox musical of 2008, felt like a charming backyard play that happened to be studded with top stars and hit songs. For others, it felt like the proverbial nails on a chalkboard. Both audiences will probably find the sequel, “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” aptly titled.

“Here We Go Again” presents the parallel stories of young Donna (Lily James), the free-spirited product of the 1970s played by Meryl Streep in the first film, and her now-grown daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried, reprising her role). Through flashbacks, we see Donna meet the three men who might be Sophie’s father (played as grown men by Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard), while in the present day Sophie struggles to reopen her late mother’s inn on the Greek island of Kalokairi. That’s right, Streep’s Donna is dead (though she’ll still make an appearance).

The first musical number, sung by Donna during her graduation from Oxford, is “When I Kissed the Teacher.” That ostensibly rebellious song strikes an off note in this #MeToo moment, and the careful change of pronouns (the teacher is now a “she”) doesn’t help. The rest of the film’s choices are equally wrongheaded (platform heels and feather boas, in 1979?), though less socially tone deaf.

The new cast is a mixed bag. James’ Donna seems a fairly shallow creature whose sexual freedom looks like fickleness; her two feisty friends (Jessica Keenan Wynn and Alexa Davies as young versions of Christine Baranski and Julie Walters, respectively) are far more appealing. Of the young actors who play Sophie’s possible fathers, only Hugh Skinner stands out with his decent Firth impression. And in what is becoming a tradition, their singing is decidedly hit-and-miss.

Because the original film already reshuffled ABBA’s best-selling “Gold” compilation, this sequel must dig down into the complete box set. Thanks to the songwriting chops of Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, even these lesser-known tracks prove sturdy. (“My Love My Life,” sung by Streep’s Donna from the great beyond, is surprisingly poignant.) Let’s face it, though: These are not The Hits. The pleasurable crackles of song recognition that the first film provided are rarely felt here.

“Here We Go Again” is written and directed by Ol Parker, who easily adopts the low-concept aesthetic of the original movie. Only Cher, as Ruby Sheridan, Sophie’s Las Vegas superstar grandma, manages to rise above the fray with her still-powerful voice and an amusing moment of meta-snark. “You gotta work on your breathing,” she tells Sophie. “And you were a little pitchy.”