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.

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.

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.

Pretty much the same plot as the first one. Someone has put out a hit on another person and dozens of highly skilled assassins are called in to take him out. Bullets fly, bodies fall and the story doesn't seem all that it was suppose to be.

I'm one of a few people who really dug Smokin Aces. It had great quirky characters, good action when it was actually happening and it showed Ryan Reynolds can do more than just comedy. People seemed to complain that it was thin on story, needed more action, and deserved a better twist. Well, I am putting all those complaints to the second film, which is actually a prequel.

Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins Ball is a cheap direct to DVD cashing in on the name, quick and dirty film. The production values are pretty low rent and the acting suits it. Vinnie Jones is the biggest name draw and he is hardly in the film. They plaster his face all over the poster and he honestly doesn't belong there. In fact, one of the main characters isn't even on the poster. He's not recognizable enough. Tom Berenger plays the character who has the contract out on him and a special team of agents must protect him. So they take him to a vault, highly protected and assure him no one can get in. Sure enough, dozens of crazy hit men show up and that's when things go from bad to worse.

The Tremor family makes a return, minus Captain Kirk and Martin Keamy (Star Trek and Lost fans can attest). They kept the least interesting brother, the one who obviously needed the money, and introduce three new Tremor characters. The crazy sister, the dumb bigger brother and the hillbilly father. None of these new tremor characters are as interesting as the two missing. The film tries to fill that void, but it fails. Instead the fans get a poor imitation of one of the better aspects of the first film.

The action is lame and never feels as frantic as it should. The cheap explosions are goofy and laughable. We never get a chance to connect to any of the characters. In the first film, I was picking my favourite hit men, this one I had none. None of them are as cool, or as memorable.

The twist is lame and makes little to no sense. The writing of the film was slacking and obviously written so quickly to get the film into production that people must have really not read it. The director P.J. Pesce, seems to specialize in direct to video films. It shows, since he has no theatrical vision and the film feels very confined to its obvious production costs.

If you hated the first film, thought it was decent or just liked it, I would advise you to skip this one. I only recommend it if you are truly a die hard fan. Even then, I say proceed with caution.

I really, really liked Smokin Aces, and i was excited to go watch this sequel, featuring my favorite UK actor Vinnie Jones, who always gives violent movies this little extra just be his appearance.

As so often with sequels, this one just doesn't cut it - it is nowhere near as well-acted, intense and spectacular as the original.

The story features some of the assassins from part 1, but they have been cramped into the plot in an awkward way this time - without giving away too much, it's rather unbelievable. Their methods seem dull after watching part 1, and the addition of the new assassins doesn't make up for that at all.

Bad, b-movie style acting and extremely bad CGI (explosions!) take up the remaining 1.5 hours, until the foreseeable-from-minute-1 plot-twist kicks in.

Loads of plot holes, bad dialogs and unexplained sudden character-developments makes me rate this 3/10 unfortunately.

TLDR: Don't bother, grab it once its out on DVD