Mise à prix 2

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

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.

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.

I was sent an advance copy of this movie on DVD. I enjoyed the first Smokin Aces and I had no problem spending 90 minutes on this one. Firstly, there's tons of gratuitous violence and nudity. If that's not your thing, skip this.

Secondly, this is called Smokin Aces 2, but from its apparent direct-to-DVD release status, you can expect that Jeremy Piven and other big cast members like Ray Liotta didn't show up. However, Tommy Flanagan (the guy from the first movie who changes his face) has a reprisal. We see Vinnie Jones of Snatch fame (Bullet-tooth Tony) playing the usual hit-man/tough man. Tom Berenger is easily the best, as he plays the target of a large assassination contract for his head.

The movie is a sequel, but it has nothing to do with the Buddy Aces Israel storyline (though his name is mentioned once, I guess just to get SOME sort of movie-verse continuity). Like the first, Smokin Aces 2 sets up the assassination contract, but the storyline is not even close to as appealing and creative as the first. You do get to see the rival assassins preparing and scheming to be first to claim the prize, however unlike SA-1, there is no creative twist to how they all converge on the target. Instead you just get a boring shootout with some very (VERY) far-fetched comical interludes (All I'll say is exploding midget clowns).

A terrible script, terrible storyline, a worse ending, yet somehow the first half of the movie was tolerable. If you're a male who likes guns and boobs, you'll likely be able to sit through this. Autumn Reeser shows some skin, as does Martha Higareda, someone I had not known until this movie.

It's still a 2/10. One point for guns, the other for naked ladies. I'm pretty sure 99.9% of females will despise this movie, and any male not enamored with action/nudity probably will too.