{"id":6345,"date":"2024-10-19T21:32:04","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T01:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6345"},"modified":"2024-11-23T23:06:41","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T04:06:41","slug":"smile-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/19\/smile-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Smile 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Smile 2<\/strong> (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 127 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violent content, grisly images, language throughout, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Parker Finn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Parker Finn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Cristobal Tapia de Veer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Charlie Sarroff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 18, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Dylan Gelula, Raul Castillo, Peter Jacobson, Ray Nicholson, Lukas Gage, Kyle Gallner.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The best sequels build on the premise of the original film. Others merely retell the story with different characters. I\u2019m afraid Smile 2<\/strong> falls under the latter category. It\u2019s pretty much the same as the first with all the mind tricks and disorienting upside down shots. It doesn\u2019t bring anything new to the table which is disappointing considering that writer-director Parker Finn has what it takes to be a master of horror like Romero, Craven or Carpenter. He knows how to make an effective scary movie; the problem lies with the script.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It breaks down like this. The evil in the Smile movies is a parasitic curse that gets passed from person to person. Apparently, it\u2019s been around for a while. It feeds on personal trauma. It attaches itself to whoever witnesses the death of somebody afflicted by it. The new host has about seven days to live before the thing causes the affected person to take his or her own life in front of another person who then becomes the entity\u2019s new host and the cycle begins anew. So what exactly is this entity and what is its origin? Finn didn\u2019t explain in the first movie and he doesn\u2019t explain here either. What we have with Smile 2<\/strong> is a decent horror movie with no real payoff.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This time, the one at the center of action is Skye Riley (Scott, Aladdin), a famous pop singer about to embark on a world tour after taking a hiatus to deal with personal issues- i.e. drug addiction and being in a car accident that claimed the life of her boyfriend. She\u2019s under constant supervision by her mother\/manager Elizabeth (DeWitt, La La Land) and their personal assistant Joshua (Riley, The Wilds). They make sure she stays on track and on schedule.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So how does Skye come into contact with the curse? It all starts when Joel (Gallner, Scream 5), the cop ex-boyfriend from the first movie, tries to rid himself of the entity. In doing so, he passes it to Lewis (Gage, How to Blow Up a Pipeline), a drug dealer who happens to do business with Skye. She calls him up one night to score some Vicodin for a back injury she sustained during rehearsal. He tells her to swing by his place which she does on the sly. When she gets there, Lewis is acting crazy and out of control. Then it happens. He smiles that scary smile before smashing his face in with a weight plate. BA-DA-BING! Now Skye carries the curse.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Skye begins to mentally unravel. She has visual and auditory hallucinations. She sees people smiling at her. She\u2019s no longer sure what\u2019s real and what\u2019s not. Even worse, she starts losing it in public. She has an episode at a charity fundraising event during which she assaults an elderly woman. Skye can\u2019t tell anybody what\u2019s going on with her because they\u2019ll think she relapsed. The only one she can confide in is her best friend Gemma (Gelula, Shithouse) who she hasn\u2019t talked to since their falling-out a year ago. Other than her, Skye is all alone in dealing with the insidious evil thing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Last week, I gave a glowing review to Terrifier 3, praising it for its superior (and plentiful) gore effects and writer-director Damian Leone\u2019s willingness to \u201cgo there\u201d. The opening scene of Smile 2<\/strong> shows similar promise. I don\u2019t want to go into a lot of detail about how it gets to where it goes, but it ends with a grisly image of somebody who\u2019s been hit by a car. The victim is cut in half. His insides are spread all over the street. I smiled with anticipation. Will the rest of the film be this graphic? While it has a few good bloody scenes, it\u2019s all CGI. I\u2019ll grant that CGI gore has come a long way since its early stages, but it still has a long way to go. Besides, nothing will ever beat the sight of good old-fashioned stage blood. Damian Leone knows this.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you\u2019ve seen Smile, then you know not to believe everything you see in Smile 2<\/strong>. That\u2019s the problem with sequels to tricky movies like Smile. Audiences are already onto them. You can\u2019t fool them twice. The makers need to come up with a way to up their game. Sadly, Finn fails to do that. He doesn\u2019t build on the story, he simply continues it. The only real difference is setting it in the cutthroat, merciless world of pop music where popularity is a fleeting thing. One mistake and you\u2019re cancelled. Skye\u2019s been given a second chance and she can\u2019t mess up again. That means she has to deal with the pressures and demands of fame like hectic schedules and creepy fans like the obsessed wacko who shows up at a meet-and-greet. It\u2019s enough to make the sanest person go insane.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As Skye, Scott does exceptional work. She completely commits to every aspect of the role, especially the all-consuming horror and fear of dealing with something supernatural. That\u2019s on top of the anxiety of mounting a big comeback tour while struggling with sobriety and addiction. Finn really puts his lead actress through the emotional wringer. She handles it like a pro. She makes Skye\u2019s fears feel real and palpable. DeWitt, in a performance that brings to mind Barbara Hershey in Black Swan, is very good as the overbearing stage mom more concerned with keeping the money train going than her daughter\u2019s health and well-being. Ray Nicholson, son of Jack, has a memorable moment as Skye\u2019s deceased boyfriend. One look at that smile and you know exactly whose kid he is.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The good news is Smile 2<\/strong> is only slightly inferior to the original. Despite its shortcomings, it\u2019s still a pretty good horror movie. It has a few effective scenes like the one where is beset by her smiling back-up dancers. After the opening, it\u2019s the film\u2019s biggest stand-out scene. Although nobody is likely to be fooled again, it\u2019s still freaky trying to figure out where reality stops and the mind f*** begins. To its credit, Smile 2<\/strong> is never boring even if it runs longer than it needs to at 127 minutes. Still, it\u2019ll please audiences looking to celebrate Halloween with a scary movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If Smile 2<\/strong> does well, I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll see a third movie in the future. It could go one of two ways. One, it could try to follow up on the promise of this installment\u2019s closing scene, but it would be a herculean task. Two, Finn could do a prequel explaining the origin of the entity. Smile: Origin has a nice ring to it, don\u2019t you think?\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smile 2 (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 127 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violent content, grisly images, language throughout, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Parker Finn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Parker Finn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Cristobal Tapia de Veer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Charlie Sarroff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 18, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Dylan Gelula, Raul Castillo, Peter Jacobson, Ray Nicholson, Lukas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Smile-2-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6345"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6406,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6345\/revisions\/6406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}