For the past ten years, "Mamma Mia!" has been one of my favorite movies of all time. It's got an absurd premise (girl invites three potential fathers to her wedding and she has no idea which one's actually her dad) and it embraces how ridiculous the plot is. It never takes itself too seriously, but still has sweet, serious moments (such as the "Slipping Through My Fingers" and "The Winner Takes It All" scenes).

This movie is always my go-to whenever I'm feeling down and need something lighthearted to watch. It never fails to make me smile.

So when I heard that a sequel was in the works, I was thrilled. However, "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" lacked all of the charm that made the first one so good.

Warning: the rest of this article contains spoilers for both movies.

"Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" is a prequel-sequel, chronicling both the story of Donna's crazy summer after college when she met her potential baby-daddies Bill, Sam, and Harry, and the story of Donna's daughter Sophie dealing with opening a new hotel, her mother's death, and her newfound pregnancy. Not to mention, Sophie's estranged grandmother Ruby drops in for a visit!

I will grant that the musical numbers in this movie were phenomenally done. In fact, some of them were so well done that they actually surpassed the original in quality. I especially loved Young Donna and Young Harry's rendition of "Waterloo."

Even though most of the well-known ABBA songs had been used up in the first movie, the actors really took ownership of the lesser-known ABBA songs and made them work in their favor.

However, the musical numbers were the only redeeming quality of the movie. The plot itself just seems like promises unfulfilled.

Judging from the trailer, I was so sure that this movie would mostly focus on the topic of motherhood, with Sophie dealing with her pregnancy, Ruby dealing with her guilt over not having a relationship with her daughter Donna while she was alive, and Young Donna dealing with getting pregnant with and raising Sophie.

But in reality, the movie doesn't deliver on any of these conflicts. In fact, Sophie doesn't even discover that she's pregnant until halfway through the movie! For the first half of her story, Sophie is solely dealing with the opening for her hotel that no one is coming to and relationship troubles with her boyfriend (or husband?) Sky.

And though this has the potential for creating conflict, the conflict almost instantly resolves itself, as her dads, Sky, and a bunch of hotel opening attendees simultaneously sail to the island while singing and dancing to "Dancing Queen."

This removes all of the stakes this movie might have had because we know everything is going to be okay. Then Ruby drops in.

Again, when Ruby came, I was expecting a huge conflict. In the first movie, Donna tells Sophie that when Ruby found out that Donna was pregnant, Ruby told her not to bother coming back home. It is implied that Ruby never bothered to contact them again, so her suddenly reappearing should be a big deal.

However, it seems like they only threw in the Ruby plot in order to have Cher in the movie. Throughout the movie, the only things Ruby does are act stuck-up/sassy to Sophie, then realize her long lost love Fernando is at the hotel opening and sing "Fernando" with him. Seriously.

Not once does Ruby show any remorse over not seeing Sophie grow up or grief over her daughter's death. The writers of the story introduced all this tension, then didn't follow through on any of it, leaving me confused and unsatisfied.

Without conflict or stakes, there is no plot. The whole present-day part of the movie consists of a potential conflict being introduced, then fixing itself, eliminating all senses of closure.

And though the flashback sequences are interesting, because the first movie already tells the full story of Donna, Harry, Bill, and Sam, there is no conflict or suspense there either.

It's hard to get emotionally attached to a character if you already know what's going to happen to them unless you introduce something new to the story. I thought that the writers would include the motherhood aspect of Donna's story in the flashback parts, but they didn't. The movie ends right after Donna gives birth to and baptizes Sophie.

All the flashback parts do is muddle the timeline that was established in the first movie. In the first scene of the first movie, Sophie tells her friends that Donna first fell in love with Sam and brought him to the island (and "dot, dot, dot"), then when Sam broke her heart, she rebounded with Bill, then Harry. The sequel starts with Harry, then she meets Bill, falls in love with Sam, then rebounds with Bill.

I could have ignored the inconsistencies if the rest of the movie was good, but it wasn't good enough to look past these glaring mistakes.

Overall, though the actors were great, the musical numbers were well done, and some of the scenes/characters were charming, "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" lacks a plot, stakes, and emotional connection. It was a great idea, but weak execution.