'Smile 2' Review: Bigger Is Better!

The sequel has many of the same issues as its predecessor, but Parker Finn (with help from Naomi Scott) so over-delivers on cinematic razzle dazzle that it barely matters.

Smile 2 (2024)
Written and directed by Parker Finn
Starring Naomi Scott
127 minutes
rated R (strong, bloody violent content, grisly images, language throughout, drug use)
opening theatrically on October 18 courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Looking at the early estimates, Paramount’s Smile 2 is looking at a domestic debut of around $24 million, or essentially tied (in terms of inflation) with the $23 million launch of Parker Finn’s first Smile. While it probably won’t be as leggy (the film pulled a ridiculous 4.7x weekend-to-final multiplier and grossed $106 million), at worst, the $28 million sequel will likely be a classic case of “sequel to an overperformer ‘disappoints’ by only grossing what was expected from the first one.”

Parker Finn’s follow-up isn’t necessarily “good,” or at least it has the same issues that plagued the first film. However, it’s such an “I’ve got more money, confidence and the benefit of the doubt” filmmaker flex that the sheer cinematic razzle-dazzle papers over most of my qualms.

I wasn’t big on the first Smile, arguing that it felt like a direct-to-video riff on The Ring (which, initially intended for Paramount+, it somewhat was) and had one of those premises that turned the film into a glorified waiting game. Simply put, and this applies here as well, once the heroine gets “infected” by the “smile bug,” nothing matters beyond whether the quality of the imagery and potency of the “scares” overshadows the fact that none of it is “real.”

Once recovering pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott, giving a spectacular “acting with a capital A” performance) watches her periodic drug dealer kill himself in a Final Destination-worthy fashion; it’s all just a matter of random “smile” imagery jolting the audience and watching our heroine lose her mind.

These films have a particular, almost refreshing cruelty, as neither Skye nor Susie Bacon’s trauma shrink from the first Smile remotely deserved their fates. Intentional or not, Smile and Smile 2 play like a rebuttal to the current “horror is morally virtuous and deals with generational trauma and grief in a healthy way” discourse. No matter, even if the film is still a feature-length deluge of false shocks and “nope, this scary scene was all in her head” sequences, the quality of the filmmaking makes up for it.

While horror has generally been considered a safe genre partially due to lower budgets, I appreciate how both of Paramount’s big 2023 follow-ups were big-budget, New York-set fantasies that flaunted their money and increased production values as a selling point. Even if there are plenty of “cheaper” sequences where Skye just sits by herself and watches her world unwind, the film feels big, busy and crowded in a way that we once took for granted from a major studio release.

This isn’t a new quibble, as (while I quite liked the film) I remain “traumatized” from watching Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival almost exactly eight years ago and realizing that the Contact of the 2010s was essentially two or three significant characters talking to a single alien organism in a barren warehouse location. Since then, I’ve been hyperfocused on the extent to which “big” movies look and feel as big as what was once par for the course in the days of Face/Off and L.A. Confidential. So, if I bent over backward to be fair to Jurassic World Dominion — a rate “shot during COVID tentpole” that didn’t look it, that’s why.

I will often criticize a given movie I dislike despite agreeing with its messaging or initially approving of its plot by saying, “I liked what it was about more than how it was about it.” With towering images, copious complicated sequences that look and feel as crowded as real life, and several impressive special effects sequences — aided by a terrific lead performance, Smile 2 is a rare example of the opposite. I can’t pretend that it’s necessarily a “better” movie. Still, it is incredibly polished, cinematic inventive and wearing its “Fuck you, it’s Hollywood dammit” money on its sleeve in a way that wasn’t the case for at least one recent “R-rated thriller involving creepy smiles” sequel. Smile 2 is a pleasant case of bigger being better.