Smile 2 Doesn’t Deserve Your Grin
Image Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
By Luis Zonenberg
While the first Smile made me afraid I’d die of laughter from the awful jumpscares, Smile 2 makes me afraid that I’ll actually watch it again. After the modest success of the first film, director Parker Finn returned to bring audiences back into the fold with more scares and gore galore with the addition of pop stardom. In doing so, the film crumbles under the weight of its own story and scares, instead becoming a confusing mess. How is this so?
Well, let us start at the beginning. The movie centers on mega pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) going on her first world tour after recovering from substance abuse and the loss of her boyfriend, actor Paul Hudson (Ray Nicholson). But after witnessing her friend, Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage), commit suicide, she soon finds herself cursed as a supernatural entity takes hold of her. Losing her mind, Skye seeks to end the curse before it attaches itself to another person.
The story itself is almost repetitive of the first one, down to this curse even being used as a metaphor for trauma or PTSD. Skye Riley is very similar to the character of the first movie’s protagonist, Rose Cotter; both are cursed as they confront their past trauma in hopes of stopping the entity. Yet, the twist of this hexing affecting a popstar does allow for it to be fairly creative and the filmmakers clearly knew to take advantage of this.
As far as the acting goes, Naomi Scott is the real standout here as popstar Skye Riley. She shows a wide range and delivers a performance that feels not only genuine, but also personal. Besides the performances from Ray Nicholson and Rosemarie DeWitt, the rest of the supporting cast were serviceable at best given the script that was handed to them.
The cinematography was average, ranging from fairly creative to egotistically annoying. Some shots are cleverly filmed as if it was one take, giving the audience a continuous uneasy feeling as the characters move around. Others are clearly for show, filmed upside down to give that same distorted feeling, almost as if to say, “Something isn’t right, be afraid!”
Honestly, this all would have been fine if it amounted to a satisfying ending, which is sadly not the case here. Endless twist after twist builds up to a climax that leaves more questions than answers – not in a way that allows you to think philosophically, but rather to dwell on the numerous plot holes. Instead of a quiet, horrifying ending that ties in with the theme of the first story, this ending seems to rely more on cheap gore and shock value to get audiences riled up in the aisles.
All of this adds up to over two hours of cheap jumpscares and a gore splashfest that ignores what little subtlety the first one had to offer. The elements designed to display a genuine deconstruction of a person’s psyche instead resort to cheap thrills to spook the audience. Besides a stellar performance from Naomi Scott, Smile 2 will not leave audiences grinning for more anytime soon!
Rating: ★ ½ of four
