Title: Smile 2
Describe This Movie Using One The Song Remains The Same Quote:
ROBERT PLANT: Does anybody remember laughter?
Brief Plot Synopsis: Skye Riley has a Million Reasons for her comeback, and is on the Edge of Glory as she anticipates the coming Applause. Unfortunately, the Paparazzi are no longer her biggest problem, and while she’d like to Just Dance, she’s affected by a friend’s Poker Face, and has to convince her mother she wasn’t Born This Way.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3.5 Jean-Ralphios out of 5.
Tagline: “It’s the last thing you’ll see.”
Better Tagline: “Well, technically the second to last.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Superstar singer Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is poised to embark on her big comeback tour, one that will hopefully redeem herself from her troubled past in the eyes of her fans. As if trying to maintain her sobriety amid the pressures of fame wasn’t enough, her high school friend/Vicodin dealer Lewis (Lukas Gage) shocking kills himself in front of her. This event coincides(?) with an increase in disturbing phenomenon that make Skye question her own sanity.
“Critical” Analysis: Parker Finn’s Smile was the sleeper horror hit of 2022, so a sequel was inevitable, if for no other reason than for Paramount to capitalize on the original’s financial success.
Whatever the intention, Smile 2 is both scarier and more disturbing than its predecessor. Finn expands his universe in interesting ways (thanks in no small part to Naomi Scott) but still bogs down in increasingly convoluted mythology that — while helping distance the movie from comparisons to The Ring and It Follows — threatens to develop into full-blown incoherence.
As is (apparently) usually the case, the victim is an unknowing participant. Skye opens up about her troubles on a revealing interview on The Drew Barrymore Show, describing how she’s dealing with emotional *and* physical scars. The weight of her past excesses, culminating in the death of her boyfriend Paul (Ray Nicholson, showing the family resemblance), provide ample fodder for the entity to manipulate.
Skye’s fate seems baked in when she first starts seeing things, since she has no understanding of the circumstances enveloping her. Help, of sorts, appears in the person of Morris (Paul Jacobson), an ER nurse whose brother was killed by the entity and has a plan to end its reign of terror once and for all.
Finn branches out from the more straightforward techniques of his feature debut, inverting the camera and using mirrors and cell phone cameras to good effect. There’s a real Weeping Angels aspect to the possessed (hallucinatory or not), culminating in a great scene that echoes an earlier musical choreography sequence. In spite of a healthy number of cheap jump scares, Smile 2 sticks with you longer than the original.
But the same criticism of the first movie can be leveled here, and that’s in how the numerous fake-outs and hallucinatory transitions cheapen some of Scott’s more emotional scenes and render a good chunk of the third act incomprehensible.
Scott, previously seen in Charlie’s Angels and Aladdin, carries the movie much as Sosie Bacon did the first ones. Her Lady Gaga by way of Robert Downey, Jr. is ultimately believable, especially in trying to convince her mother (Rosemarie DeWitt) that her recent instabilities *aren’t* the result of a relapse.
Smile 2 improves on Smile enough to recommend it. There’s palpable dread for those into that sort of thing, and plenty of goop and “Oh hell no!” (to count a woman behind me at the screening) moments for everyone else.
Ask A 15-Year Old:
RFTED: What’d you think?
15YO: It was intense.
RFTED: You gonna be okay?
15YO: Yeah…could you check my room for me before I go to bed?
Smile 2 is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
