Smile 2 (2024) Written Review

 

Smile 2

Cast: Naomi Scott, Dylan Geula, Rosemarie DeWitt

Writer and Director: Parker Finn

*** out of 5 *'s

 

After a famous pop singer (Naomi Scott) witnesses her drug dealer commit suicide involving a really heavy weight.  Skye Riley starts to see things that she can’t explain or may not even be there at all in this sequel to the quote unquote hit movie Smile.  Titled cleverly Smile 2.  Not Smile Again,or Smile Too.  Keep on Smiling  would have worked fine, but no just Smile 2. 

 

Based on the short film Laura Hasn’t Slept(2020). The First Smile feature released in 2020 made over one hundred million dollars and it got strong critical reactions as well.  The acting was solid and even if the premise itself was hokey and a tad convoluted.  The entire cast sells it and makes it very believable. Having a lead character be a therapist who works with people dealing with trauma and hallucinations works great.  Because as an audience member,we are questioning events along with her.  It takes some fun twists and turns and it ends just perfect.

 

Now the sequel is here and while it does amp up a bit of the gore level.  None of the scares are really earned because our lead character is no one to really root for.  Skye Riley is not a good person and she is not even that great of a singer either.  The pop star from Trap had more charisma and better songs.  A movie featuring that character in this would have been way more intriguing.   At least the lead in the original feature was dealing with her own mom’s depression before her paient killed herself.  Skye on the other hand just had a fight with her boyfriend which caused them to have an accident and it was her fault too.  It would have been refreshing to have a lead character just be a terrible person that you root to see get destroyed.  The only people you like is her mother(Rosemarie DeWitt) and her best friend played by Dylan Geula that she had a falling out with.

 

 The trailers make it out to believe that you will learn more about this curse in this film.  It sets up some good characters and situations only to have those moments be completely superfluous.  In these features it doesn’t really matter what the lead character does or doesn’t do.  It’s never clear what they are witnessing is real or not.  You can have them be anywhere in the story and be like.  Nope, She wasn’t in her room she was on stage at her show.  Oops our bad she wasn’t just in the passenger seat she was actually driving the whole time.    The only movie that does this technique right of showing a character unsure of what is real or not was Satoshi Kon’s animated masterpiece Perfect Blue.  Also involving a pop singer who gets caught up in some gruesome elements when a fan starts stalking her.  There is a lot more that is left out of this review but you should absolutely watch it right away.

 

 There are some good special effects but it has moments that are lit way too dark to really see what was so scary about it.  Director Parker Finn does deliver some fun scares that will make you jump but there is nothing that will make you want to turn your head.There are some creative elements in this that was fun to experience and based on the crowd size.  watching people react to this will be fun.  Not as fun as watching people react to The Substance but pretty fun.   Smile 2 has an R rating and this could have gotten away with a PG-13 with only a few trims.  This is nothing like Terrifier 3 which could not get a rating even if multiple cuts were made.   People who really dug the first one and found it to be scary and suspenseful will have a lot of fun with this sequel.   If however you found yourself laughing more than being scared by the first Smile.  You can wait til streaming.  Don’t however wait on Perfect Blue.  Go watch that immediately.

Find more great reviews by visiting MNFCA (Minnsots Film Critics Assocation)

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