Is Smile 2 any good? Reviews from critics are in

The reviews for Smile 2 are pouring in and so far, a lot of critics are raving about it.

Following the unexpected runaway success of the first Smile film in 2022, director and writer Parker Finn has conjured up an equally unhinged sequel to keep everyone up at night in the lead up to Halloween.

The sequel is led by Power Rangers actor Naomi Scott who plays a pop star as she begins to experience a series of increasingly terrifying events while getting ready to hit the road on tour.

Smile achieved an impressive 80 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes with critics. It starred Sosie Bacon as a therapist who begins to believe she is experience supernatural occurrences after witnessing the suicide of her patient.

Making a sequel that lives up to the original is easier said than done, as Joker: Folie a Deux reminded us earlier this month, however it seems the Smile franchise has escaped that fate. The sequel, which lands in cinemas on Friday (18 October) currently has an 85 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.

Naomi Scott stars in Smile 2 / Paramount

What are the critics saying? The Guardian said the sequel “does make for a neat, well-utilised setting for a horror film about losing one’s mind”.

AV Club said the film, “finds dark humour in taking these desperate feelings of unease and feeding them to a kaleidoscopic creature of pain and viscera”.

Meanwhile, Time Out said Smile 2 is “tamer than its deeply unsettling predecessor but still unhinged enough to keep you nicely on edge”.

And the New York Times said the follow-up is “more thematically ambitious than the original, which also allows Finn to stage more satisfyingly ridiculous kills and ramp up its air of delirium.”

It remains to be seen how audiences will react to Smile 2, however the film sounds like a truly disturbing ride.

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