Movie Review: Smile 2

Someone who is a fan of horror movies and wrote the screenplays for "Smile" and the sequel "Smile 2" decided that a person who just stares at you with an evil grin is horrifying. The problem is that a person standing with a strange wide grin gets old after a certain number of similar scenes. Smile 2 is the sequel to the movie Smile, released in 2022 about an evil spirit floating around the world who invects a victim, over time forcing them to kill themselves in front of a witness. Then once the person is dead, the spirit infects the witness creating a chain of people who are killed.

This time around the main character is a Taylor Swift-like famous singer who is the newest part of the chain of victims of the evil spirit who infects a person's body. Naomi Scott plays a famous singer Skye Riley with the most memorable part of her performance - her constant high-pitched screaming throughout these 2 hours. This is another part of this sequel that gets old after the third or fourth loud scream.

There are several disturbing scenes of smile victims killing themselves, by either trying to cut off their face or in one instance, a man taking a large weight plate and repeatedly smashing it into his own face. At times it is hard to believe that movies like this are considered horror entertainment because this level of over-the-top gore is never necessary to scare any audience.

The ending, which comes out of nowhere is another insane bloody ending that even includes a giant bloody alien that comes out of the body of Skye Riley. At this point. I had more than enough already and could not wait for this film to come to an end.

The film critic Sean Collier summarizes the problems with this film the best: "Our movie would lose all of its terror by turning the lights on and avoiding staccato bursts of unmotivated sound design, it’s not scary — it’s just irritating".

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Smile 2 are way too high 83% with my rating at 50% and a big thumbs down. Lets all hope that this is the last Smile movie - but there will probably be a Smile 3 in another 2 years, unfortunately.