Smile 2 Review

Paramount Pictures had a massive hit with Smile, earning $217 million from a $17 million budget, and was critically acclaimed. A sequel was inevitable, and it has been released with a new cast of characters.

Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is a pop star who plans a comeback after the death of her famous boyfriend (Ray Nicholson) and her highly publicised substance abuse problems. When Skye sees an old high school friend, Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage) he shockingly kills himself and passes on a malicious spirit to the young woman. Skye’s sense of reality gets altered as she sees her deceased boyfriend, and many of her fans start staring at her with a creepy smile.

Smile 2 seems like it can be as big of a hit as its predecessor, or possibly even bigger. The budget increased to $28 million, which is tiny compared to other recent films, i.e. Joker and Joker: Folie à Deux. Smile‘s reach has probably grown because of the home release and its good reputation and Smile 2 has also earned positive reviews. Plus, it’s being released just before Halloween, a great time for a horror film.

Smile 2 offered more of the same. Fans of the original will probably enjoy it whilst people who disliked Smile will not be won over. I was not too fond of Smile and Smile 2 was the same story, which ended up boring me. The sequel focused on trauma, addiction, and stardom instead of mental health. The thrust of the film was everyone around Skye thought she was losing her mind and that she had relapsed.

Finn Parker returned to the director’s chair and he does have a sense of flair. There was a strong opening when Joel (Kyle Gallner) from the first film tried to pass on the entity to a criminal, making this part of the film feel like the first act of It Follows. This sequence was filmed to look like a one-shot and it was an intense and impactful opening. It was like a thriller or an action film as much as a horror film and it was the best sequence in the film.

Parker ensured Smile 2 had a brutality to the film. It was extremely violent to the point that it earned an 18 rating in the UK. It had more impact than Terrifier 3 since characters were harming themselves and there was gory realism to the sequences. The broken bone coming out of a leg was wince-inducing. A sequence where Skye sees lots of smiling people in her hotel room felt like a Doctor Who sequence with the Weeping Angels since those people only moved when Skye wasn’t looking at them. However, most of the horror was reliant on jump scares and the entity’s ability to distort reality.

Skye worked better as a character than Rose Cotter in the first film. Skye’s trauma and issues were more believable because of addiction and living in a gilded cage. Skye was good when meeting fans and putting a brave face on for them, but deep down was hurting. Plus, she had to deal with the stresses of a comeback tour, so it was understandable why everyone around Sky thought she had relapsed. Adding to Skye’s stresses was her mother/manager, Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt) since Elizabeth could start a conversation by acting like a kind and concerned parent before showing her true colours as a controlling stage mum. However, Skye’s stresses were shown with her constant use of the F word and downing bottles of Voss water which was distracting and hilarious project placement.

It’s odd to think that Smile 2 was the second pop music-themed horror film of 2024, the first being Trap. Like Trap, Smile 2 had a tie-in album, which was filled with upbeat pop songs with dark lyrics. It was overly produced autotuned pop numbers that were a disservice to Naomi Scott since she has proven herself to be an excellent singer in Aladdin. Scott felt more believable as a sexually confident pop star than Saleka, although I would listen to Saleka/Lady Raven’s music before Skye Riley’s.

Smile 2 did avoid the investigation storyline that plagues many horror films. The first Smile movie already did that storyline, so it didn’t need to retread the same material, but an investigation does give horror films some narrative drive. Smile 2 was more focused on scares that didn’t work. Smile 2 did try to introduce a new idea of Skye trying to find a way to stop the entity by fast-tracking death, but this was hardly explored.

Smile 2 was a film that did have some stylish flourishes and it was great to see Naomi Scott in a lead role, but it was a film that had nothing new to say and was a drag at 127 minutes.