Rather surprisingly my aged Uncle Chris Booker had been dragged by his offspring to see Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again, the sequel to Mamma Mia. He considered that it was possibly the worst film he had ever seen.
I too had gone along with the Mrs on a date night. About half an hour in Pierce Brosnan tells his daughter “don’t worry it will get better” at which pint I said rather loudly to the almost deserted cinema “I very much doubt it.” The Mrs laughed and, when I suggested that we could nip into the next door screen and catch most of the latest Mission Impossible, she was almost tempted.
It is not just that the story line was paper thin or that most of the songs were the “B Sides” from Abba’s glory days it was just that certain scenes were just excruciating rubbish with the bogus New College Oxford graduation scene taking the biscuit.
Notwithstanding a very late appearance by the ghost of Meryl Streep and Cher, this film was right up there with The Lobster as films never to see. Uncle Chris said he may have seen some that were worse. I suggested “The Yellow Submarine” but that, he said, was beyond his time, he gave up on music in 1965. How about Help! I offered. At least he liked the music and his then girlfriend was the female lead so he was biased. But in terms of plot he conceded that was right up there with Mamma Mia Here We Go Again.
The critics have, rightly, slammed this Mamma Mia offering and the cinema I attended was almost empty. At least we can safely assume that this is the last offering from this franchise.