Smile 2-- My take on the movie with Spoilers!

 

Plot: Pop sensation, Skye Riley, experiences bizarre happenings when she watches a man die in front of her.

Quick Movie Review

Smile was an okay movie, save for the first few minutes, which was absolutely well-made.

I didn't have any expectations for Smile 2, only because I didn't find the original that impressive, nor did I believe the sequel would add anything to the premise.

But I was wrong.

2024 has proved to be a great year for unique horror stories, and Smile 2 is definitely one of them.

The plot may be predictable, but the movie is elevated because of Naomi Scott's remarkable performance. The actress nails every scene she is in. Whether she is performing as an artist or playing a character who is on the verge of a psychotic breakdown, she does everything well.

Suffice to say, Smile 2 would not have been what it is without Naomi Scott's believable performance. It helps that the soundtrack is good, too, and is in sync with the movie's theme.

This is one instance where the sequel is so much better than the original.

SMILE 2 Movie Plot

Joel, from the previous movie, is still struggling to get rid of the entity after witnessing Rose die in front of him.

He needs to kill someone in front of a witness to get rid of the curse. He finds a drug dealer, holds him at gunpoint, and takes him into his house where the dealer's brother is sitting on a couch.

Joel stabs the dealer in front of the brother who panics and realizes that he may be next and so shoots at Joel, who instinctively shoots back.

And so the curse remains. But as luck would have it, more dealers arrive at the house, and Joel rushes to hide. He comes across a guy called Lewis who wants nothing to do with what Joel is up to.

Joel runs out of the house and gets hit by a car. It's pretty gruesome because we see a foot, blood spread out like a smile, and torn torso.

Everything goes upside down. That's one annoying thing in this movie: every pivotal scene goes upside down.

Anyway, we meet Skye Riley, who is at the Drew Barrymore show. Drew is commending Skye for kicking her substance abuse habit and changing her hair colour to blonde.

Skye is barely hanging on after the car accident that took her fiancé's life.

She is managed by her mother, Elizabeth, and assisted by Joshua.

At dance rehearsals, Skye stumbles and cries out in pain. The accident has left her with a scar on her abdomen that she is conscious of. It is also painful, which is why she must rely on Vicodin to manage it.

After a meeting where her world tour is being discussed, Skye sends a message to Lewis to get more Vicodin. He calls her over.

Elizabeth tells Skye to get in touch with Gemma. She thinks Gemma was a good influence on her, and she should get in touch. Skye isn't too thrilled about doing that because only she knows how she left things with her best friend.

Elizabeth drops Skye to her apartment, but Skye comes out the minute the car leaves and heads over to Lewis' place.

As soon as she enters his apartment, she finds him in a dishevelled state. He looks frantic and even puts a sword at her throat. Then he tells her that he never contacted her. Or maybe he did and doesn't remember.

Skye just wants her Vicodin and leaves. She also assures him that she is actually here and not a figment of his imagination. Lewis goes to get her Vicodin, which is inside, since she didn't want any of the other substances.

Skye is left alone for some time before Lewis suddenly barges in, being crazy again. He sees something near Skye and freaks out. Then suddenly, he opens his mouth and makes choking sounds. While he's on the ground, Skye thinks he is overdosing and thinks about calling for help.

In the next instant, Lewis gets up, takes a weight plate, and smashes his face in front of Skye.

Skye freaks out, vomits, and almost calls the emergency number only for her to see all the substances laying out in the open, which could end up getting her into trouble.

She rushes out of his apartment and heads off home.

While getting ready for her tour, Skye is distracted by what happened to Lewis. She doesn't like her costume because when the light comes on, her scar can be shown.

She then receives a text message asking if she was at Lewis' house. This happens while she is searching online for whether vomit can have DNA. The answer is that vomit isn't a reliable DNA sample.

Anyway, Skye moves on to her meet-and-greet. Some are nice to her, while there are those who come on to strong. One in particular has to be dragged away after he gets Skye to sign a t-shirt and then tries to paw at her. Skye thinks taking a picture with a girl will be less problematic, but the girl has a creepy smile on her face. She has braces, too.

Skye finds her weird but takes a picture and lets her go. She also signs the t-shirt she is wearing because she thinks that is what she wants. The girl doesn't let go of her smile.

Skye is unnerved, and so should anyone else who has seen the first movie. Skye has already experienced her first sign of the creature.

Afterwards, she is at her apartment when she finds the t-shirt she had signed for that creepy fan. Expecting an intruder, Skye looks around the house only to find the fan rushing towards her. Spooked  Skye runs to the door only to find Gemma standing outside.

Gemma goes on about how she almost didn't come but quickly comforts a distraught Skye.

Skye takes this opportunity to have a friend, to confide in her about Lewis's death. Gemma is freaked out, but since she's a good friend and wants to mend things with Skye, she decides to help her out. It's ride or die.

Gemma and Skye sleep on the same bed at night. Skye talks about her car accident, and she thinks she hears Gemma say it's her fault. When she turns around, Gemma is grinning at her and makes a car horn sound.

Skye wakes up and freaks out in her bedroom. Gemma comes in casually and informs her that she's made breakfast.

Skye looks at the time and realizes that she's super late. She rushes off without eating breakfast.

At the rehearsals, Skye is still out of it and thinks she sees visions of her fiancé Paul. She trips up, and when her choreographer checks on her, she blames the dancers for tripping her. The dancers just stand there, watching her warily.

Skye walks out and goes to her room. It is completely trashed, and she suspects Joshua of doing it since she saw him walk past her. She makes a scene only for Elizabeth to tell her that Joshua was with her the whole day. Joshua looks equally shocked, and clearly, they both suspect that Skye is using drugs again.

Skye has still been receiving weird texts about knowing her identity, but she continues to ignore them. Music executive Darius asks her to speak at an event, and Skye is hesitant, but he assures her that all she will have to do is smile and read the teleprompter.

Elisabeth urges her to agree, and so off Skye goes at the charity fundraiser. She starts to speak only for the teleprompter to get stuck. Unprepared for this event, she gives an impromptu speech about how success fixes nothing and that problems still remain no matter what. The audience is bewildered, and Skye realizes she's depressed the crowd. The teleprompter starts again, but the next sentence introduces her fiance, Paul.

Skye is shocked, as is the audience. But to her surprise, she sees Paul in a tuxedo and a creepy grin, walking towards her. She freaks out publicly and screams at him to stop smiling. He doesn't.

An elderly woman comes to comfort her, but at the same time, Paul practically lunges at her, causing Skye to accidentally push the elderly woman off the stage. Everyone attends to her, and Skye realizes she looks like an unhinged person. She leaves immediately.

At her apartment, Skye gets another message from the unknown number, telling her that what she is seeing is real. Desperate to get the bottom of her craziness, Skye tells him to meet her at a public place. She goes to see the man at the pub who introduces himself as Morris.

Morris knows all about the entity because his brother died in the same manner. He works at a hospital and suggests he knows an effective method to help her. He tells Skye that the entity has been feeding off her for two days, and she's running out of time. He suggests stopping her heart momentarily so that the creature can't feed on her anymore.

Skye calls him insane and before the conversation can go further, someone recognizes Skye, and people begin to gather around her. Skye rushes out and goes back to her apartment. 

If she thought she was going to get a respite from all the bizarre incidents at home, she's wrong.

She suddenly sees her backup dancers in her living room. Skye figures it's the entity who is after her because all of them are grinning. She tries to sidestep them only for more of them to surround her. Her plans to escape are thwarted as they grab and pull her. Then one of them jams his hand are arm down her throat.

Skye blacks out.

We then see Skye with dark hair, arguing with Paul inside a car. She screams at him and accuses him of thinking her as psychotic. She's also sniffing powder, and Paul is visibly disgusted with her habits.

Paul calls her a Psycho which makes her so mad. She tries to take control of the car and drives it off the side of the road. The car plunges off a cliff.

Skye awakens from the nightmare and finds herself in a room at a rehabilitation centre. Elizabeth is sitting beside her and telling her that she will have to spend some time here to recover before the tour. Joshua comes in to give her a sweatshirt so she doesn't feel cold.

Skye tries telling her that they need to cancel the tour because of what is going on, but Elizabeth doesn't want to listen to her excuses. She explains that if Skye cancels the tour, they will owe people a lot of money, and she will be kicked out of the label. Skye breaks down and tells her mother that she never cared for her, to which Elizabeth calls her selfish and not seeing the sacrifices she has made for her daughter.

Things turn bizarre once more as Elizabeth suddenly grins. Skye realizes the entity has taken over her. Elizabeth bangs herself against the mirror, breaking it, and then takes a shard to stab herself in the neck. She then gouges her eye out and advances upon Skye.

Skye removes the IV drip needles and manages to get to the door, but as she tries to open it, she finds the mirror shard in her hand. She looks down and sees blood on her gown.

To her horror, she realizes that she may have killed her mother. She goes up to her and is horrified.

Joshua tries to enter, and Skye closes the door on him, making an excuse about changing her clothes. She sends Joshua to get her any soda and quickly puts on the sweatshirt over her bloodied gown.

She covers her mother's body with a blanket and slips out of the room.

Once she reaches the reception, Joshua returns with her soda and questions the blood on her gown. The other nurses notice her too and approach her.

Skye runs to the security guard, pretending to ask for help, and instead takes his gun. She warns everyone to stay away and then rushes outside.

Gemma happens to come at that point with coffee. Skye steps on some glass and limps towards her friend. She tells Gemma she needs to go and her friend decides to help her. Ride or die.

In the car, Skye texts Morris and agrees to his plan. He gives her the location to a vacant place. Skye gives these instructions to Gemma while wrapping up her bleeding foot after removing the glass piece.

Just then, Skye receives a call from...Gemma.

She takes the call, and it is her friend telling her that she wasn't sure she wanted to return the call considering how they ended things. Skye asks if she came to her apartment, and Gemma tells her why she would want to go to her apartment after their fight?

Skye turns to look at the Gemma in her car, who turns to her and grins. As it turns out, the entity has been pretending to be Gemma all this time.

How sweet of it to make Skye breakfast and get coffee.

Anyway, the entity tells Skye that Gemma hates her and would never want a friend like her. Skye is about to break down but is shocked when she learns that no one is in the car and that Skye has been driving this whole time.

She makes it to the abandoned place that happens to be a closed down Pizza Hut. He explains that she will have to enter the freezer, and when her heart slows down, she will be injected with a serum that will keep her brain alive.

SMILE 2 Ending Explained with Spoilers

For some reason, Morris just leaves Skye on the table and in the freezer, then walks out. Skye wants him to stay, but off her goes, promising to return.

Considering what we learn later, it makes sense, but at the point it is like, WTF? Why is he leaving a person who is going crazy with hallucinations?

Anyway, while Skye is waiting, she feels blood drip on her. She looks up at the ceiling, and it is her as she was during the accident, only upside down.

She sees herself unbuckle the seat belt and fall on her. Skye screams as she realizes the entity is after her.

It then gets crazy eyes that look more comical than scary. Moments later, the entity jams his thumbs inside her mouth to open it wide.

Skye decides to fight back and bites down on its thumbs. Thinking she's got the upper hand, she jams the injection in her, thinking it will knock her out and defeat the entity.

Instead, she gets groggy for some time before the entity practically laughs at her. She realizes her plans have been foiled, and she's at the mercy of the entity.

It locks her in the dark, and she tries to find her way out.

In the next instant, she is being hoisted up the stage. She's dressed in the costume she didn't want to wear because it showed off her scar.

She is bewildered to see her mother alive and all her fans cheering for her. Her mother even signals for her to smile.

She is struck with terror when she sees herself before her, tearing her costume open, and then tearing through her scar to reveal her abdomen. The entity walks out of her shell and approaches Skye, who falls backwards in fear. She has realised that the entity can never be beaten.

Her fans grow silent when they see their star fall on stage and appear to choke. They consider calling for help.

We don't see what is happening but know that the entity is entering her.

Skye suddenly gets up, and her fans cheer her for being strong.

In the next instant, Skye is grinning. It's so unsettling that everyone is silent again.

We don't see it but hear sounds of the microphone bashing against something. The fans scream in horror.

We then see Skye laying on the floor, grinning, with the microphone jammed in one eye.

The movie ends.

My Take On The Movie

Smile 2 is a well-crafted movie that takes the franchise forward and even goes on to explain  how manipulative the entity can be.

Now that we can see the ploys adopted by the entity to terrorize its victim, it will be interesting to see how this plot moves forward.

Of course, there were hundreds of witnesses at Skye's concert. Will a potential sequel be able to show how hundreds of people will fend off against the entity or is it going to be a mass killing considering they all saw it at once?

Smile 2 is one of those rare sequels that is far superior to the original.

Scare Scale: 4/5