Smile 2 is a sequel to Smile (2022), which continues to waste its (somewhat smart) premise on poorly designed jump scares and tedious hallucinations. As the film progresses you'll be left wondering what's real and what's imagined, the question is, do we care?
The opening is good as police officer Joel (Kyle Gallner, from the last film) tries to pass on the curse to a couple of drug dealing thugs, but it's all downhill from here.
Naomi Scott is admittedly superb, giving a performance far better than the film deserves as wide-eyed, scared, pop star Skye Riley. Riley is suffering from PTSD after the death of her then boyfriend (Ray Nicholson) in a car crash, that she survived. The smile monster feeds on trauma and after a visit to her drug dealing friend (Lukas Cage), to score Vicodin for her bad back, the curse transfers to her.
The gore is increased and the psychotic smile is used more often but the film is annoying in the extreme. The boring hallucinations render events pointless. It's also mean spirited, see: the brutality with Skye and her mother (Rosemarie DeWitt) and its final hopeless reveal. At least make all of her concert fans smile monsters! Gaga.
Sigh. Frown upside down.
FG FG
DIRECTED BY: Parker Finn. SCREENPLAY: Parker Finn. RUNNING TIME: 127 minutes. CERTIFICATE: 18 / R. USA.
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