Smile 2 is a psychological thriller film, it mixes themes of mental health, drug problems and the hardness of fame and has great actors which are known, among them we can see Lukas Gage known for his performance in the well-known series The White Lotus, I was also pleased to see him after so long the actor of the series Dr. House, Peter Jacobson.
Of course one of the most striking was that of the son of the great actor Jack Nicholson, Ray Nicholson, who by the way is the one with the scariest smile. His leading lady Naomi Scott I had not seen in Hollywood productions but from what I researched I was in the movie Aladdin, among others.
It's a bit of a gore film, more than I usually like, however, it is quite bearable, there is a psychological war between the main character Skye Riley, she comes battling with all the negative that can bring the excesses of the industry and a recent accident that almost cost her life and where her boyfriend Paul Hudson died.
She has had a very successful singing career, but this has also led to her downfall in drugs, she suffers ravages since the accident that left her in chronic pain and this made her dependent on drugs. From here thanks to this and all the stress of an upcoming tour she is plunged into anxiety and resorts to seek this drug with a dealer named Lewis, who previously had an incident that left him marked forever.
Well, when visiting this man begins the hardest horror story for Skye, the worst of her life was not over yet, she is possessed by some kind of entity that wants to end the life of each of the people it possesses. A hard battle is coming between him and the protagonist.
She is in a world where she has high demands, her mother, who is her manager, does not support her emotionally as she should, on the contrary, she presses her more and more to continue with her commitments, ignoring everything that may be affecting her mental health. Among so much disaster and fear there is a man who wants to help her, he knows Skye's suffering and asks him that the faster they try to end this demon, the safer she will come out unscathed.
Smile 2 | Official Trailer
I feel that the film was given a better development than the first one, we still do not know the beginning of the creature or entity, but we got to know more closely how it works, I liked what they reflected on the dark side of the industry when you can become a superstar and what you can suffer on the side of the excesses of fame.
There are things that were a bit inconclusive, maybe they will make more of these movies to develop the why of this and that. It's an interesting movie, but it was more the marketing than what the movie itself gives. I didn't like something in particular and that was that I was expecting more script or more story to tell from the actor Ray Nicholson, I thought that would be the case since they gave a lot of publicity to his face and smile and he wasn't too linked to the story.
Well the movie is good, although it may resemble the movie It Follows, it has a bit of that air, so it was not too new for me to see it, I would give it a score of 6/10 and I hope there is a 3rd installment without dragging it out more where you finally see the reason for this entity.
I do recommend it, I'm not sure if you should read it for children because it is a bit grotesque and gory so you have to be attentive to them. This is Dina Aczib, it's a pleasure to have been here sharing a brief review. Best regards.
Tools used and credits:
- Main image edited with: Canva
- Translator: DeepL Translate
- Information in filmaffinity
- Cover support image