Smile 2 (2024)

Smile became a surprise success when it came out in 2022. When I first watched it I really didn’t think it was that good but in preparation for this film, I decided to rewatch the first film and was surprised how much more I liked it. So I went into this film feeling a lot more optimistic about this film. The film follows Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) who starts seeing people with smiles on their faces just as she is about to launch her tour a year after nearly dying in a car accident. 

GOOD POINTS

VERY GOOD OPENING SCENE

There is no real reason to watch the first film except for the first few minutes of the film. It takes place six days after the first film and we follow Joel (Kyle Gallner) as he forces his way into some drug dealers house and attempts to kill one in front of the other to pass on the ‘curse’ but things go wrong and I like it simply because it appears to be one continuous take. 

NAOMI SCOTT IS THE BEST PART OF THE FILM

You would expect this to be a given really as she is all over the film but I thought that she was likeable despite the fact that Skye does not appear to be a nice person. Admittedly she admits that she isn’t a nice person but it's fair to say that despite this, I still found myself wanting Skye to get through to the end. The rest of the cast is perfectly fine but the film relies on Scott to do a lot of the work in this film and she does it quite easily. 

INTERESTING CAMERA ANGLES

The camera work in this film is very good. As mentioned, the opening scene was a good use of camera work because it's one single shot but there are countless other moments where the camera is moving along like a slow Wes Anderson. I kept thinking that Wes Anderson must have been an influence for Parker Finn because he does it a lot. It’s only because it's done when needed that it gets a good point. There are plenty of moments where the camera follows action and there is no shakey cam which I appreciated.

DOESNT RELY ON THE FIRST FILM

Normally sequels rely on the previous instalment but this film didn’t. I honestly don’t think you need to have seen the first film as this one doesn't really have anything to do with the first and if they hadn’t stuck 2 in the title then you would have been none the wiser (although the six days later caption might be confusing). To have nothing to do with the first was a brave choice and yet it worked. 

GOOD GORE

Normally I am not great with gore although I am getting better but will never be at the stage where I could watch Saw or Hostel but the gore was sporadic and was done very well and effectively. Despite the fact that the trailer shows a lot of good stuff that would have been better had we not known it was coming, the best gore moment occurs when Lewis smashes his head three times with the weight from the weightlifting thing. The squishy noises used throughout help make the gore even more effective.

BAD POINTS

JUMP SCARES DON'T ALWAYS WORK

There were a couple of moments where the jump scares worked but for the most part the jump scars felt a bit lazy and the sort of dumb scares that you would see in a Blumhouse film. No effort seemed to be used in making most of these scars effective which made the ones that did work all the more confusing. It was like they were thought of by a different person. 

FINAL ACT IS A WASTE OF TIME

Perhaps the biggest issue I have with the film is the final act of the film. The film relies on the false narrative plot device because it shows us Skye killing her mom, driving to Staten Island to meet us with Morris who says that if she basically fakes her death then that will defeat the demon, he then walks out and never returns and then Skye appears on stage and kills herself infront of 15,000 people and then the film ends. This raises many questions such as ‘is the mom really dead?’ and ‘What was the point in that whole section?’. 

LACK OF A CONCLUSION

The fact that the film doesn't have a clear ending means that this could be strung out for several films and become the new version of the Insidious series. I understood why the ending of the first film happened the way it did but this film felt like a cop-out and everything that led to the ending was slightly eye-rolling.

OVERALL

There is a lot to like about Smile 2. It manages to avoid the traps that a sequel normally falls into but the lack of the clear ending means that it comes very close to being a frustrating film. It wasn't Trap level of frustrating but it was very similar to Civil War which was good for 80% of its running time before it completely went off the boil and this film was 90% before it went off the boil for me which is pretty good.