Here We Go Again? My Mama Mia 2 Review
“Mama Mia 2” is the first of what will probably 30-75 sequels of the original “Mama Mia!” film released in 2008, which in turn was based on the 1999 musical, which in turn was based on a Sigmund Freud paper published just after WWII called, “How to Get your Id to Dance, Dance, Dance.”
The story in the first movie was borrowed from the plot of a movie called “Buono Sera, Mrs. Campbell,” which you might think was about a neighbor of the founder of Campbell’s soup who gets mad and leaves the neighborhood when ‘ol Mrs. Campbell won’t share here top secret Chicken Noodle recipe.
Actually, “Buono Sera, Mrs. Campbell” tells the story of three soldiers who each thinks he is the father of her daughter. Gina Lollabrigida played Mrs. Campbell which explains why the soldiers wanted to continue any relationship. Any relationship at all. And I mean anything they can do to see hear again, they will do. Anything.
Films like “Mama Mia!” are always poo-poohed by the oh-so-cool film press, but they make tons of money. “Mama Mia” raked in more than $600 million on a budget of just over $50 milly. Cha-ching! Take that, “Han Solo.” Maybe add some dancing.
In “Mama Mia!,” Sophie invites three men to her wedding without telling her mother. She believes one of them is her father, but she doesn’t know which one. Like her mother would never notice three extra strange men at her daughter’s wedding: “May I help you, sir? This is a PRIVATE affair. Do I have to call security?”
I don’t want to ruin the rest of the film for you, especially if you never even heard of it. “‘Mama Mia!’? Oh yeah, that’s the film about Mike Piazza’s days playing high school ball in Pennsylvania, right?” one guy was overheard saying in midtown Manhattan.
“Mama Mia II” picks up five years after the first movie. Sophie is working on reopening the hotel her mother ran, but realizes she has no idea how to run a hotel. She thinks about turning it into an AirBnB, renting rooms to loud Americans who think Kalokairi (the name of the island) was a left-winger for the Russian National Hockey team in 1997. Another option is to become a franchise for Marriott Courtyard Inns, which would involve serving chemically treated scrambled eggs and burnt coffee to tourists overloading their plates in the free breakfast room.
Critics of course panned it, excepting the music and cast which got high marks. Which is expected. The plot is just a framework for the music. Take the lyrics from the song “I’ve Been Waiting For You.”
I, I have known love before
I thought it would no more
Take on a new direction
Still, strange as it seems to be
It’s truly new to me
That affection
It seems to me this person is confused about things in general. She’s the kind of person who trips a lot over cracks in the sidewalk and can’t seem to drive to work the same way twice.
I, I don’t know what you do
You make me think that you
Will change my life forever
I, I’ll always want you near
Give up on you, my dear
I will never
When she says she wants the person “near,” how close are we talking about? I have a problem being around the same person more than a week at a time, so this “near” sounds rather close. How about we do “near” three days a week, and “relatively close by” the other four days? Open to negotiation, of course.
You thrill me, you delight me
You please me, you excite me
You’re all that
I’ve been yearning for
Wow! I haven’t been this popular since my brother Photoshopped my face on the body of an Olympic swimmer and pasted it to my Facebook account when I left my browser open. Not, cool, bro! But I did get a lot of messages from older women asking if I taught swim aerobics. Er, what is swim aerobics?
You can tell where this movie is going from the lyrics alone. And it doesn’t matter. People will still go see it in droves.
To them, I offer my favorite toast from the Sopranos, “Cent’ anni.”
As with most of my movie reviews, I haven’t seen this one either. I know, it’s weird, right?
