Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Ol Parker

Starring:  Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Lily James, Stellan Skarsgard, Dominic Cooper, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Andy Garcia, Cher, Meryl Streep, Alexa Davies, Jessica Keenan-Wynn, Hugh Skinner, Josh Dylan, Jeremy Irvine

I wasn't waiting for a sequel to Mamma Mia! (2008), which was a slight musical based on the Broadway smash in which big named actors sung ABBA hits in an effort to hold a threadbare plot together.     The sequel contains more ABBA songs, including some reimagining of those performed in the first film and I would imagine a raid of some of the deep tracks from ABBA's albums.    It has energy, charm, and a Lily James performance you can't keep your eyes off of.    I didn't anticipate enjoying it as much as I did, but there it was in all its silly glory daring me to hate it.    I couldn't.

Meryl Streep, the lead from the first film, is featured on the poster and in the trailers of the sequel, but she is only in it for about ten minutes near the end and in a version of Super Trouper over the closing credits.     The main focus this time is on her daughter Sophie (Seyfried), who was supposed to get married in the first film, but didn't.    She is still with the same guy when this story picks up a few years after its predecessor, but it is unclear whether they married after all.    Sky (Cooper) is in New York working a new job, while Sophie is renovating her now late mother's hotel for a grand re-opening bash on the same Greek island from Mamma Mia!.    Sophie invites her three fathers (Brosnan, Firth, and Skarsgard) to join the shindig, but two of the three can't make because they are halfway around the world on business affairs.    No points for guessing they will chuck their plans to travel to the party and surprise their "daughter".    I won't explain how exactly Sophie has three fathers.    See the first film to find out.

Sophie's reopening is not without its obstacles, and the film cuts often to flashbacks to her mother graduating college in 1979 and then setting out for adventure.     Donna (James) is a free spirit looking for love, or at least Mr. Right Now, and her smile lights up the screen.   Within a roughly 48-hour period, she hooks up with awkward Harry (Skinner), smooth Swedish sailor Bill (Dylan), and then masculine architect Sam (Irvine) on the Greek island, and has her heart broken by Sam.    But, she loves the island and stays there, learning she is pregnant by one of the three men she had relations with along the way and giving birth to Sophie.   

James is radiant and the younger versions of Brosnan, Firth, and Skarsgard are also appealing.   Harry's version of Waterloo is the musical highlight of the movie, but I doubt there can be a bad version of that song.    Meanwhile, back at the hotel in present day, Fernando (Garcia) is the hotel manager who lost track of his love many years ago.   No points again for guessing he will reunite with her before the movie's end, as well as having ABBA's Fernando performed to commemorate the event.     Sophie's grandmother (Cher) also makes an appearance.    In real life, Cher is only three years older than Streep, but she is still billed as Donna's mother and Sophie's grandmother, so we go along with it.    No points for guessing Cher will belt out a number or two as well. 

The story is thin oatmeal, but the flashback scenes with James carry some gravitas and poignancy which provide the heart of Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again.    Once you get past the silly story and the pretense of characters simply breaking into song at inopportune moments, then you will sit back and find yourself tapping your feet to the songs.    I know I did.