Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)

The first film’s very specific pleasures are comprehensively encored.

In a nice change from Seyfried’s 2008 turn as the ingénue, we want to befriend James’ Donna, not mute her. She’s as gorgeous as she is committed, as funny as she is emotionally true. A big talent.

A shiny-bright jukebox musical with a heart of gold and a plot of pure polyester, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again works hard to be the feel-giddy movie experience of the summer. And it mostly succeeds in its own glittery, aggressively winsome way.

“Here We Go Again” is another kitsch patchwork; it’s as if you were watching the CliffsNotes to an old studio weeper that happened to be carried along by some of the most luscious pop songs ever recorded. Yet the feeling comes through, especially at the end — a love poem to the primal bond of mothers and daughters.

The template may remain essentially cheesy and the men still appear never to have experienced a dance floor. Yet it would be churlish to argue against a film of such smile-out-loud optimism.