Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball

What an awful film, the whole concept was absurd. It's one of the dumbest movies I've seen and the way they tried to dress it up as some 'Usual Suspects' style work of genius was laughable. Everything to do with the four morons in the truck (especially the clowns) would ruin any film and the plot was full of holes. Wilful suspension of disbelief is one thing but this required suspension of all intelligence.

There are none of the big stars of the first movie. Vinnie Jones, who's improving as an actor and I want to like, still cannot deliver a line without sounding like he's reading it from a script for the first time and Tom Berenger is clearly desperate to be accepted by Hollywood again if he is taking parts like this. I bet he was very well behaved on set this time.

Bizarrely though, this had one of the best last ten seconds of a movie I've ever seen, which is all that stopped me giving it a rating of one but by then the film was beyond redemption and it was wasted. If it had been put on the end of a decent film it would have gone down as one of the all time classic endings, it was that good an idea. Now it will just be forgotten on the end of a bit of straight to DVD garbage, which is nothing short of tragic.

Here is a very brief review of the first movie (or at least what i thought of it) - Brilliant. Plenty of action, developed characters, good story line, nicely paced and well directed and acted.

Here is a very brief review of this movie - terrible.

Why you ask? Mainly because it has nothing that the original movie had. Admittedly this film doesn't have the budget that the original had, but the way that it falls down could have been solved without further expense. The characters aren't developed in any way. I can't really explain this without adding spoilers, so i won't, but believe me, there is no recognition of ANY of the "new" assassins background or any story behind their assassination "style". Lazlo Soot (a returning character) isn't in any way as likable as in the original. His whole "human face mask" approach was very refreshing in the first film, but tired and used in this attempt. He adds very little in all. As for the Tremors? They just aren't the Tremors. Simple.

The action is average at best. Nothing special to report unfortunately. A lot of it just feels very rushed- cops get killed, one or two assassins get killed, more cops get killed. Unfortunately it all happens within 5 minutes, so there isn't even a chance for some of the assassins to even attempt getting to their target.

However, the story line does end out with a fairly OK twist, even if it is slightly far fetched. It gives reasoning behind the actions of the assassins and their "contracts". Not anything special though. So it's not all too bad i guess.

In a nutshell, I would recommend that you just go watch the first one again. There's a reason as to why this release is straight-to-video. This is only my opinion though, so by all means, give it a try. You might end up liking it more than i did :)

Thou not even close to its predecessor, this movie is quite watchable and entertaining. Pretty big cast doing a bit less than what could be expected from such actors, given the decent script, although the dialog was surely not the greatest.. everything was there for some better exposition and back-story. Maybe 20 minutes more runtime might have done the trick. You could see the reduced budget, especially during the explosions and in choice of music. Budget (as most of the time) surely influenced the total feel of the movie.. which seemed a bit rushed and unpolished, and also the pressure (from Exec Producer J.C. maybe?) to follow the visual style of the first movie so closely...looks like it was a bit too much. All in all it's still a decent / fun movie, could have been much better (like so many big-budget releases) but still manages to be fairly entertaining.

OK, I am posting this as it seems that too many people reviewing this have completely missed the point.

First, the Special Effects: Yes they were done the way they were (badly, with a comic slant) on purpose. For two reasons. One, they were emulating British gangster flicks (for reasons of budget or style - your guess) - and second they were following a particular anarchist film style which you may be familiar with - Natural Born Killers anyone? Or perhaps you think Mr. Oliver Stone was also being cheap with the special effects? The scene of the rednecks tooing and froin in the truck with the background changing the way it did was a direct homage to that film.

Second and last - you don't go to a film like this expecting it to solve your pointless existence. You go to have a laugh and hopefully some fun. This film did that pretty good.

Too short if you ask me. The director had more ideas then made the screen - I blame the editing :) Cheers

I never write reviews, but i signed up at IMDb just so i can write one for this movie. This movie is probably the worst that i have ever seen in my entire life. And I have seen a LOT of movies. I was hoping the movie would be like the first one in terms of direction and production, but i was mistaken. The director, producer, script writers and actors all performed second rate, and you can tell. The acting was horrible, the lines all sounded too rehearsed The script was confusing, the writers tried to pull it off as a sophisticated movie with twists and what not--but they failed. In all honesty the only reason i finished the movie was to see if it really was the worst movie i have ever seen. And it was. So don't waste your time with it.