Directed By Parker Finn

Starring – Naomi Scott, Kyle Gallner, Lukas Gage

The Plot – About to embark on a new world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley (Scott) begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her dark past to regain control of her life before it spirals out of control.

Rated R for strong bloody violent content, grisly images, adult language throughout and drug use.

Smile 2 | Official Trailer (2024 Movie) – Naomi Scott, Lukas Gage (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Being that the first film provided an exaggerated yet entertainingly synthetic articulation of mental illness, with a lot of maintained ambiguity, the need for an expanding sequel proved to be necessary, and in almost every measurement, ‘Smile 2’ is a superior secondary installment that expands on the lore of this horrific condition, all without sacrificing the tonal and visual merits of the first film that made it such a success. As the writer and director of both films, Finn feels like the obvious reason for its creative integrity, with not only ample time delivered on tying the two films together under the same universe, but also boldly immersive elements of his production that fleshes out the paranoia and ferocity of this plague. Mainstream horror rarely utilizes anxious editing, intricate sound design and dysmorphia of cinematography accordingly towards the integrity of a film’s conflict, but here Finn and his production weave an intentionally frenetic consistency to so many of the sights and sounds adorned in the film, which grant not only a surreal encompassing to what Skye experiences, where we often question the legitimacy of fantasy versus reality in what she’s interpreting, but also an entrancing radiance of stylistic splendor that proves how far Finn has grown as a master storyteller in such a short time. His power of the pen is equally vital, as an ambitious two hour run time is filled accordingly between tying up any loose ends to his predecessor, but also vividly articulating this anything but glorious game of fame that ultimately serves as one giant allegory mirrors the weathering psychology of a pop star forced to endure the weight and pressures of such an industry. As to where the script for ‘Smile’ felt like a sum of derivatively picked parts of similarly structured movies, the script here takes legitimate chances that often results in some highly creative set pieces to Skye’s vulnerability, where never once did I feel like this movie was emulating or shaping itself in a way that brought to mind other films that did it first. Also, in centering this around such a character, Finn effortlessly captures much of the overwhelming set of circumstances that come with fame, but even a distinguishing of this line of Skye’s withering sanity that plays all the more vividly towards her highly effective performance, and though the run time is a bit longer than we would expect from a film like this, Finn uses every minute meaningfully to play all the more coherently towards Skye’s journey in evolution, which earns every inch of its ambition with the kind of empathetic appeal that it gives to a character who in outline is essentially unrelatable to 95% of the audience. Despite behavior that justifiably feels erratic and unrestrained at times, Scott never loses sight of Skye’s humbling humanity held in continuous compromise, with mesmerizing intensity to her vulnerability that are always paid off seamlessly with these boldly expressive eyes and frantic facial deposits conveying such overwhelming adversity. Make no mistakes about it, Scott repeatedly acts her ass off here, supplanting the portrayal with a whirlwind gravitas that we can feel in a turn that is every bit physically commanding as it is emotionally wrenching, and in being a singer in real life herself, the dependency on her character being a pop star in the context of the film never feels far-fetched or reaching to her capabilities, with ample opportunity for Scott to show off her vocal chops and on-stage demeanor that makes her simply irreplaceable in the role. But being that ‘Smile 2’ is a horror film, the frights are obviously its biggest contributor to whether it finds an appealing consistency to its audience, and while conflicting with the same intentions that occasionally hindered its predecessor, the film still manages the impossible feat of conjuring these meticulously timed jump scares that even earned a jolt from this critic. Part of the appeal in this department definitely elicits from the aforementioned editing techniques that reshape and distort reality, with a blanketing sound scheme that entrances in its appeal to maintain audience investment, but just as much praise is garnered from the way Finn spends an unordinary amount of time reveling in the air of piercing silence, where audience expectations are deviated away from. Typically, I’m able to predict these jump scares in ways that I typically count down from, until they materialize, however every time I felt that something or someone would pop out, I was asked to wait a little longer, and if these unforeseen brilliant instances were effective on someone bored to death of them in productions incapable of crafting an ominous and foreboding atmosphere, then I can only imagine the unsettling impact that they will have to general audiences who always fall victim to their charms, and aren’t as bothered by their consistency in usage.

NEGATIVES

Even with a sequel that I feel succeeded its original installment, there were still these momentary lapses in judgment with the creativity of the material that occasionally diminished the film’s appeal, particularly with the entirety of the third act climax, which forcefully and abruptly jumps the shark. During this section, laziness starts to set in with Finn’s writing, and he relies lackadaisically more in the capabilities of this entity to explain how certain aspects of Skye’s realities can even be summoned. For everything that we know about this entity, the direction of this conflict makes some convenient motions that don’t even seem possible, where it can alter time and realities all of a sudden, and though I could forgive it if the closing moments affected me positively, I can say that the final ten minutes of this movie are easily its weakest, leaving the momentum low for where the film leaves its audience. There’s also the regretful decision of materializing this entity into a physical being, instead of feeling like an airborne toxic that we’ve come to expect, and it ultimately results in laughably bad C.G that makes these final few images feel lifted from an entirely different movie. While it’s not exactly lifting material from a movie, like I previously shamed the first ‘Smile’ for, it doesn’t feel like something that should exist in this kind of psychological thriller, serving as just one of the many moments that I couldn’t help but laugh at a situation that should be unshakably serious. More of those moments pertained to the scares as a whole for this film, with imagery meant to be chilling, but instead came across as ridiculously humorous to me. Obviously, scares are just as objective as humor, in that everybody is different with their interpretation, but mine personally never felt overwhelmed or uneasy with the abundance of frights that make up this script’s gags, leaving it eerie at best, but laughable at worst, with regards to its strangely unsettling imagery. Finally, I did enjoy the movie’s trance-heavy score from composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, but I found the mixing volumes of it to be distracting during key sequences, and not in ways that added dread to the depiction. The production seems to think the louder the sound is, the scarier it becomes, but instead it had me focusing on the music in ways that simultaneously halted my investment to the proceedings, creating an unintended adversary that should’ve just trusted its imagery to capably elicit the atmosphere.

OVERALL
‘Smile 2’ follows the lead of its surprisingly effective predecessor, conjuring a deeper, darker and superior sequel that uniquely corresponds its brand of psychological frights to the overwhelming realities of pop stardom. Through the eyes of a masterfully crafted career-defining performance from Naomi Scott, the film makes up for in extensive world-building and scope what it lacks in consistent frights, crafting a pulse-pounding prodding of mental illness that grins ear to ear with the kind of unflinching confidence of an emerging filmmaker coming into his own.

My Grade: 7/10 or B