"Bless you."
Interestingly, this decade-long-gestating sequel/prequel does deliver what you expect from the first film (though thankfully with only one brief moment of shrieking), but it is far from the sun-and-sex feel-good musical rom-com of the original - if the first movie was bonkers, this one is a little bizarre. This film feels far more mature, worldly and grown up, with noticeably fewer songs and more drama/less comedy. Critics have indeed picked up on the fact that most of the big hits have already been used, although Here We Go Again hoovers up most of the remaining singles (One Of Us hits the mark early in this sequel, for example), and there are a couple of necessary and inevitable repeats here with most of the first film's songs now reduced to instrumental cues, but the album tracks used are aptly chosen and sometimes surprising but work well. The ABBA men have clearly become less precious about rewriting the lyrics, with some very obvious and at times strange changes - the beautiful I've Been Waiting For You gets a particularly clumsy re-direction about impending motherhood. Lily James is effervescent as the young Donna and is very strong here, the younger versions of the three fathers are photogenic and amiable, and the returning cast members utterly reliable. Cher turns up rather too late in the day and completely steals the film, and Meryl Streep is used sparingly but effectively - this film's equivalent to Slipping Through My Fingers is an unexpected choice (from the Arrival album) that is another real tear-jerker. The inevitable Dancing Queen sequence recaptures the first movie's joyfulness, but Here We Go Again is not the consistent instant feel-good experience of the original, and therefore perhaps a little more interesting and unexpected. If you sit through the credits accompanied by an utterly demented instrumental medley of ABBA hits , there is a brief but funny out-take right at the very end.
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