Smokin' Crack.

SMOKIN' ACES 2: ASSASSINS' BALL (2010)

How did it get so bad?

Forget smoking aces, someone was smoking crack when they pitched this script. I'm not going to pretend to be a big fan of the original Smokin' Aces (2006), though after watching this pile of crap, I'm probably going to write a stellar fucking review for its predecessor. I wish I could come up with some flowery, creative and humorous way to say that this movie was a waste of my time, but considering the fact that they put such little effort into the movie itself, I'm having a hard time putting too much effort into berating it. It's not so much of an intentionally bad movie as it is simply a lazy as hell script, which is in many ways, almost worse. I'd rather be able to say "well, at least they tried" instead of "wow, bastard didn't even bother to take out his gum before he spit in my mouth".

Vinnie Jones is just happy for a paycheck.

The general premise runs the same as the last one. A bunch of elite hitmen are contracted to kill one man in a tight window of time. Great. How can this go wrong? The target is none other than Walter Weed (played by Tom Berenger...or "that dude from Inception"), who has a mysteriously similar addiction to playing cards and magic as the last target did. I'm really hoping I just missed the reference, because either Weed has some distracting connection to Buddy Israel, or they just knew the gag worked well the first time so, hey, why not? Slap on some sob story about his wife and kid, and you've almost completed your character paint-by-numbers, good for you!

The other cast of characters ran from bad to worse. The first film was disjointed, sure, but if anything could be said about it, it was that somewhere between the violence, gore, and chainsaws, there was something likable about every character. You cared about what happened to them, even if you knew they were more likely than not going to die in some gruesome and painful way. These characters? I didn't give two shits about. They were cool, sure. For the most part. But there was nothing consistent about them. There was nothing to latch on and make me want to pine for their survival. Rather, I found myself praying they'd die quicker so I wouldn't have to suffer their presence on the screen.

Neo-Nazi hillbilly scum was never so bad.

The Tremor family was not the same without the Tremor brothers, Baby Boy Tremor was repulsive, Daddy Tremor was boring (reason #214 Michael Parks should always be a sheriff), and even the reoccurring Lester Tremor was way too moody. The only one I actually cared about was Kaitlyn "AK-47" Tremor. Her presence was fantastic and she stole every scene was in, slugging the weight of the entire late Tremor brothers manic energy around on her shoulders and wearing it well. Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan) was one of my favorite assassins in the first film, yet in this one you got the feeling he was just fulfilling some obligation in his contract, shuffling his feet the entire film. 

Smokin'.

The final two assassins come out to Finbar McTeague (Vinnie Jones) and Ariella Martinez (Martha Higareda). Now, I love me some Vinnie Jones, and he'll come up as my BAMF of the week at some point in time. And he did good, I'll give him that, his character was definitely one of the most interesting of the bunch as the psychotic brain surgeon. Same goes to the lovely Ariella Martinez, whose tits starred in all of the best moments of the film. Her character was badass, she had a shit ton of potential, and she had a great rack to hang a costume on. Great. So where did they go wrong? I'd say it was somewhere between a halfbaked romance, an Evanescence theme song for Martinez, and the way two cold-blooded killers suddenly went soft for...no apparent reason. Yeah. One of those. As for the "good guys", I don't remember a single one of them. Clayne Crawford deserves a mention for his most beautifully convincing portrayal of a cardboard cutout. 

As for everything else, there's not much to say. The budget was clearly cut in half. This new director is sucky. The movie lost a lot of its lighthearted, campy fun and was replaced with boring, sterile government top-secret shite. The gore was...eh. Not very inspiring. There was plenty gore in the last movie, but at least there was some meaning to it. Either it was done for the sake of comedy, or high emotion, or just to show how fucking psycho the Tremor brothers are. This just felt...empty and boarding on callous. We want the characters to be vicious psychopaths, not the director. 

Since I highly encourage everyone not to see this movie, I will give you it's one and only good moment. Shooting clowns strapped with C4 out of a canon and into a club. There. You have it all. You've officially missed nothing. Resume your lives.