Smile 2 (2024)
December 2, 2024 3:19 AM - Subscribe
About to embark on a world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her past, as the public largely stands by and watches with their iPhones up and recording.
86% Rotten Tomatoes
Naomi Scott was mesmerizing as Skye Riley. The dance choreography was extremely well done.
Ray Nicholson (The Shining actor Jack’s son) played Skye’s late actor-husband to perfection.
Naomi Scott was mesmerizing as Skye Riley. The dance choreography was extremely well done.
Ray Nicholson (The Shining actor Jack’s son) played Skye’s late actor-husband to perfection.
I saw this soon after Trap so it feels like a bit of a masterwork, and little touches like the dance crew smiling stalkers felt like an actual dang movie.
There's not a lot you can do with a monster that has perfect psyche-out abilities except the same rug pulls. Flanagan had sort of the same problem with Ocululs and Hill House, but in Hill House you at least get the angle of exploring why people would delude themselves into going along with evil. Smile was just a bleak subversion of the defeat-the-evil basic horror plot. After the movie I said aloud, "I like it when the evil gets defeated" which I guess was a very Christmas thing to say.
It's pretty competently handled though. I'll give it that. A well-made torture box for this one particular character i guess. I thought Noami Scott soldiered through it pretty well as Skye.
(If Gemma was fake the whole time, what about that moment where she says hi to the mom and Skye isn't even on screen? Was the mom fake too, was Gemma real that time but not the other time? Ugh I don't really care. The monster should have some limit like it has to always be smiling. Including adding smilies to spoofed text messages lol they missed a joke there.)
posted by fleacircus at 4:34 AM on December 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
There's not a lot you can do with a monster that has perfect psyche-out abilities except the same rug pulls. Flanagan had sort of the same problem with Ocululs and Hill House, but in Hill House you at least get the angle of exploring why people would delude themselves into going along with evil. Smile was just a bleak subversion of the defeat-the-evil basic horror plot. After the movie I said aloud, "I like it when the evil gets defeated" which I guess was a very Christmas thing to say.
It's pretty competently handled though. I'll give it that. A well-made torture box for this one particular character i guess. I thought Noami Scott soldiered through it pretty well as Skye.
(If Gemma was fake the whole time, what about that moment where she says hi to the mom and Skye isn't even on screen? Was the mom fake too, was Gemma real that time but not the other time? Ugh I don't really care. The monster should have some limit like it has to always be smiling. Including adding smilies to spoofed text messages lol they missed a joke there.)
posted by fleacircus at 4:34 AM on December 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
Yeah, Scott did a great job with what they gave her, but the script was so frustrating. Too many cheap jump scares, too much over-the-top body horror, and they pulled the same "unreality" trick so many times that it destroyed any sense of stakes -- it's hard to care about what's on screen when you've been trained to expect that none of it is real. And even if you assume it is, it's happening in a way that hardly involves Skye at all -- they try to play up the guilt/addict angle, but Skye suddenly finding a bloody shard in her hand and whoops! turned out her mom killing herself was actually Skye doing it... that doesn't really resonate (especially when that entire subplot gets summarily yeeted like 30 minutes later).
The smilers climbing all over each other in her bedroom was cool, though.
posted by Rhaomi at 6:55 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]
The smilers climbing all over each other in her bedroom was cool, though.
posted by Rhaomi at 6:55 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]
Well acted, great effects, I thought the score was excellent, but like I talk about here, I just can't invest in any movie where reality is always in doubt, which means anything can happen, which means nothing means anything.
Kitteh, at the end of the movie, said "well there were some stakes, because she died," and I shrugged. Did she? Or would there be a post-credits sequence where she's fine? Or maybe Sardonic Friend is Smileified and this was all her hallucination? Or Dr. Mr. Brother Flatliner appears from behind a curtain and this was a hallucination from her being under in the freezer? Or...?
Did the entity teach her how to drive? Or was she never driving and that was all a dream? Did she not kill mom and mom was fine and she just seemed like a lady who flipped out and ran out of a hospital? Or did she never go to the hospital in the first place? Did she ever leave her apartment? Did she really drink 1,284 liters of VOSS water over the course of the movie? Was Gemma always not real or was the phone call near the end a hallucination? Who trashed her green room? Did anyone trash her green room? Was there a green room? Is she a person? Maybe she's an exceptional squirrel and this is all a hallucination? Maybe squirrels aren't real and we're all hallucinating?
Who cares?
Come for the set pieces, but I'm'a sit out Smile 3. Or Smile 1, if Smile and Smile 2 were actually hallucinations?
posted by Shepherd at 5:05 PM on February 1
Kitteh, at the end of the movie, said "well there were some stakes, because she died," and I shrugged. Did she? Or would there be a post-credits sequence where she's fine? Or maybe Sardonic Friend is Smileified and this was all her hallucination? Or Dr. Mr. Brother Flatliner appears from behind a curtain and this was a hallucination from her being under in the freezer? Or...?
Did the entity teach her how to drive? Or was she never driving and that was all a dream? Did she not kill mom and mom was fine and she just seemed like a lady who flipped out and ran out of a hospital? Or did she never go to the hospital in the first place? Did she ever leave her apartment? Did she really drink 1,284 liters of VOSS water over the course of the movie? Was Gemma always not real or was the phone call near the end a hallucination? Who trashed her green room? Did anyone trash her green room? Was there a green room? Is she a person? Maybe she's an exceptional squirrel and this is all a hallucination? Maybe squirrels aren't real and we're all hallucinating?
Who cares?
Come for the set pieces, but I'm'a sit out Smile 3. Or Smile 1, if Smile and Smile 2 were actually hallucinations?
posted by Shepherd at 5:05 PM on February 1
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I didn't hate it, but last time, I thought of this filmmaker as James Wan Lite and I meant it as a compliment, but this time, I'm thinking it again and I mean it as a mild insult.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:58 PM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]