I admit it. I succumbed to the publicity and hype, and bought myself a ticket to see the newly-released sequel to the original Mamma Mia film.
Malvern has a one-screen cinema as part of the theatre, so I didn’t have to trek into Worcester to see it at one of the big cinema multiplexes there. Usually, this far out in the sticks we are several weeks behind the times (my sister would say years behind but that’s another matter….), but on this occasion the cinema is actually showing the film from its general release day. They’re clearly expecting it to be popular – they’re showing it twice a day for two weeks, which is pretty much unheard of in Malvern. The matinée showing this afternoon was a bit under half full, and I had a comfy seat in the middle of the front row of the circle. The leg-room was a bit restricted, but I had a good unobstructed view of the screen.
The plot was as flimsy, unsubstantial and see-through as a net curtain, and was really there just as an excuse to break out some old Abba tunes. However, most of the well-known tunes were used in the original film, so they were rather scraping the bottom of the back-catalogue with a load of decidly “B-side” songs. I don’t know why they didn’t just recycle more songs from the first film, since so much of the plot and most of the characters were also recycled. The main exception to that was a new character, played by Cher, singing one of Abba’s bigger hits that wasn’t in the previous film. Who would have guessed that the hotel manager would turn out to be an old boyfriend of hers called Fernando?!
But despite the film being decidedly cheesy, it was a lot of fun. There were some snappy one-liners, some good ensemble acting, and both Piers Brosnan and Colin Firth got to do some singing and dancing. All the cast seemed to be having a whale of a time, and their enjoyment was quite infectious. All together, it was an enjoyable way of spending an afternoon, the main downside being that I’ve now got Abba’s SuperTrouper on the brain!
