Smile 2, directed by Parker Finn, is the second installment in the somewhat viral “Smile” franchise. This movie provides a new take on the concepts of the original, by expanding the stakes and reach of the Smile Curse (the movies never give it a name so that is what I will call it from now on). This movie focuses on Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), a pop singer with a massive following, and a past struggle with addiction. Throughout this movie, Skye goes further into insanity as the Smile Curse takes over her life. This movie has a lot of things going for it, but in the end, it seems to fall for the same mistakes as the original.
The first Smile movie was a hit online before it reached theaters because of a viral marketing campaign. This consisted of a variety of paid actors all going to public places, especially those that will be broadcasted, and simply smiling in the background. In 2022, it became a game of looking for creepy smiles in every public broadcast, everything from baseball games to award shows became a part of the campaign for this horror movie. This was a genius move for the marketing team, and Smile immediately became a hit. Regardless of if people liked it or how good the movie was, everyone wanted to see it. Because of this, Smile did very well at the box office, making approximately 106 million dollars in revenue. While initially, this might not sound impressive with today’s standards, this movie had a budget of only 17 million and wasn’t even initially slated for a theatrical release. Because of all of this, Paramount deemed this a success and instantly greenlit a sequel, which brings us to today.
Because of the slow-burn success of the original, Smile 2 is the sequel that I don’t think many people expected, including the people who made it, which is why the original is such a contained story (with the protagonist dying at the end). This movie opens with a loose connection to the first, but after the opening scene is pretty much its own separate thing.
The main character in this movie, Skye Riley is a much more likable and sensible character than that of the first. The character’s addiction history makes this story so much more emotional. Skye is someone who is trying to outrun her past and get through the mistakes she made while under the influence. This smile curse directly makes her confront her past in multiple ways. The curse makes her see the people her addiction hurt in the past, and she literally must come face to face with them. But also, these hallucinations and crazy things happening around her make her appear crazy to those around her, forcing her to relive the judgment and confusion from when she was using. Naomi Scott delivers an excellent performance here and is by far the highlight of this film. This added level of addiction provides additional fear and trauma (which this curse feeds off of) for the main character, while also giving Skye the chance to confront her guilty conscience and move on from her mistakes. However, this movie really messes up that opportunity and doesn’t really give that satisfying moment of growth or “a-ha” moment.
Instead, this movie falls to the mistakes of the original and trades emotional beats or satisfying conclusions for shocks and gore. While I actually really liked the first two acts of this movie, I was surprised by how much the third act messed up. This movie knows that a third movie will likely be made, so it makes no effort to actually end the threat of this smile curse, and the only time they even get close, it’s done to trick the audience. To me, this felt like a cheap trick to get more of a reaction, and I think this movie would have benefited from focusing more on the internal struggle of Skye and using that to its advantage by allowing her to overcome these in the climax of the movie. This would leave the audience feeling somewhat satisfied, even though the supernatural conflict wasn’t resolved at least the internal conflict would be.
With the ending being the biggest issue I had with this movie, there was actually a lot to like about it overall. Since this is a horror movie, I can’t end this review without talking about the scare factor/gore in this movie. While watching the original, I found myself bored and not often scared; however, this movie was much more intense. I was on the edge of my seat for the majority of the movie and grossed out by many kills. This movie was much gorier than the original, and while I don’t think it was necessary, I do think it elevated the sense of danger and stakes past the original, which is important for a sequel. In fact, I would say this movie does one of the best jobs of elevating itself from the original out of most horror sequels I’ve seen. The kills are more creative, the stakes are much higher, and the scare count itself is much bigger.
Overall, I’m going to give this movie a 3 out of 5. If it had stuck the landing I would have actually really enjoyed it, and I think fans of the original will actually be really happy with how this turns out. That being said, it has its flaws and lacks the “good vs evil” underlying themes that most good horror movies have, which makes for a pretty bleak and hopeless journey for our main character.
