SMILE 2

Name: SMILE 2
Item: SMILE 2
Author: Review

"Loud, Abrasive, Nonsensical, Ultraviolent, Demonic, Boring"

Family Content: -4 Intentional blasphemy, evil, gross immorality, and/or worldview problems. (To be avoided)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

SMILE 2 is an ultraviolent, nonsensical horror movie. Skye Riley is a driven pop singer in recovery trying to make a comeback after a terrible accident. However, she’s menaced by a shapeshifting demon who’s driving her insane. The demon is sometimes invisible and sometimes appears as another person with a devilish smile. It also possesses other people and even appears as that person after forcing them to commit suicide in gruesome ways. Skye becomes more shrill with each vicious attack from the demon. Eventually, she even becomes complicit in the violence. Or, does she? The movie’s ending isn’t always clear.

SMILE 2 has all the cinematic bells and whistles Modern Hollywood can provide its violent horror shows. However, the sound is really loud, especially during the musical numbers and the horrific demonic attacks. Also, the lead character is shrill, annoying and unlikeable. Furthermore, some of the demonic attacks turn out to be nightmarish visions or dreams. So, the script undercuts the reality of the demonic attacks. This is all ultimately so boring! SMILE 2 also has constant foul language and gruesome violence.

Content:

CONTENT: (OO, B, LLL, VVV, A, DDD, MM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong occult worldview where a strange superpowerful demon or demonic parasite causes ultraviolent mayhem and chaos in the life of a pop singer who’s trying to recover from drug addiction and from a terrible accident that sometimes wracks her body with pain, but the female lead is trying to stop the demonic attacks and ultimately find a way to banish or destroy the demon;

Foul Language:

At least 146 obscenities (mostly “f” words but 10 or more “s” words plus a several others), six strong profanities using the name of Jesus Christ, one GD profanity, and 12 light profanities;

Violence:

Extreme bloody violence includes man sneaks into a drug dealer’s house and a vicious and bloody gunfight ensues with people shot in graphic ways, man escapes the drug house and runs into the street bit only to be hit by a speeding truck and having his guts and body parts smeared all over the pavement, man possessed by some kind of demon or demonic parasite smashes his face multiple times with a heavy weight lifting clamp till he dies, images of people’s jaws being pulled apart, demon appears and breaks a character’s jaws apart with its claws/hands, people smile demonically before they kill themselves or attack other people, a character’s head is smashed into an object, demonically possessed and smiling people chase and then attack a character, terribly injured woman screams terribly in a few multiple scene, woman smashes a mirror and stabs herself in the neck, face and eye, another character is stabbed in the eye, and woman sees scary images in mirror and in her dreams;

Sex:

No sex scenes, but there are one or two crude sexual references;

Nudity:

Brief upper male nudity a man appears totally naked from the front, but his genitals are obscured by shadow, plus singer and dancers wear slightly skimpy or form fitting outfits;

Alcohol Use:

Some alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Smoking, one man snorts cocaine, unmarried lovers snort cocaine while man drives car down a road in a mountain forest, and female lead goes to buy Vicodin from a dealer/friend (she injured her back in a terrible car accident and also has a scar down her tummy because of it, but her injuries are causing her pain, and she wants to hide it because she’s trying to make a comeback as a pop star, and her career is in danger of being snuffed out); and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Unmarried lovers scream angrily at one another in a car while snorting cocaine, lead female’s mother is a pushy stage mother and puts pressure on her pop music star daughter who had a drug problem and had a terrible accident just before her last tour but is trying to make a comeback, the mother and daughter are afraid that if the daughter can’t begin the new tour with a bang she will never be given another chance in the music industry, and the demon deceives and torments people (it’s suggested that the demon thrives on this).

More Detail:

SMILE 2 is an ultraviolent, nonsensical horror movie. Skye Riley is a driven pop singer in recovery. She’s trying to make a comeback after a terrible accident. However, she’s menaced by a shapeshifting demon who’s driving her insane. The demon is sometimes invisible and sometimes appears as another person with a devilish smile. It also possesses other people and even appears as that person after forcing them to commit suicide in gruesome ways. Skye becomes more shrill with each vicious attack from the demon. Eventually, she even becomes complicit in the violence. Or does she? The movie’s not always clear at the end.

SMILE 2 has all the cinematic bells and whistles Modern Hollywood can provide its violent horror shows. However, the sound is really loud, especially during the musical numbers and the horrific demonic attacks. Also, the female lead is shrill, annoying and unlikeable. Furthermore, some of the demonic attacks turn out to be nightmarish visions or dreams. So, the script undercuts the reality of the demonic attacks. This is all ultimately so boring! SMILE 2 also has constant foul language and gruesome violence. It seems to go on forever, so visit the bathroom before watching the movie.

Like many supernatural horror movies down through history, but especially today, SMILE 2 makes its demonic villain much too powerful. By doing this, it stretches credulity and undercuts itself. The best Christian and Jewish biblical scholars warn people against making Satan and his demons too weak and too inconsequential or too strong and too overpowering. God is still in control. Resist the Devil with Jesus and he will flee.

Naomi Scott, who plays Skye, is a terrific singer and a good actress, as she proved in the delightful live-action remake of ALADDIN. SMILE 2 is not a positive direction for her to go, however, though it can’t diminish her innate and growing talent.

Watch SMILE 2 →

Quality:

- Content: -4