There are times when you want to be entertained. You want to sit down and watch a 90 minute movie and not think about cinematography or blocking or direction etc. You just want to watch a movie. Some of my friend don’t get that. They laughed at me when I said that I liked watching Smokin’ Aces 1. Then they went through a point by point explanation of why it was a terrible movie… technically. They failed to realize that when I watched it, I wanted to just sit back and watch a fun shoot ’em up movie and not think about technical aspects of movies. Smokin’ Aces 2 is the same way.

Smokin’ Aces 2 is a prequel to the original. Christopher Michael Holley from the original reprises his role in the prequel and even mentioned Buddy Israel in this movie (Buddy Israel is Jeremy Pivon’s character in the original). This movie lacks a bit of the finesse that would come from a film that didn’t go straight to video. In that I mean the speed up and slow down of time is a bit too jarring, and some of the character introductions are a bit out of context. Although introducing Autumn Reeser’s character the way they did was great and possibly the best part of the movie, but that’s just the gutter part of my mind talking.