Warning: Spoiler Alert! It's difficult to talk about this sequel without revealing aspects of the original “A Quiet Place”. If you haven't seen it, it's a great movie, and I highly recommend you check it out before reading this!
If ever a movie cried out for a sequel, it is 2018's “A Quiet Place.” John Krasinski's directorial debut was an excellent horror film about a family surviving in a world ravaged by deadly, seemingly-invincible beasts with hyper-acute hearing. Because of their deaf daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), the Abbotts all speak sign language, a unique advantage in this horrifying new world where any sound can bring death. You may recall that they were also raising a new baby, whose cries were obviously a unique disadvantage in that world.
The sequel picks up right where the first film left off. Regan and her mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) have just discovered a way to kill the aliens, but their home is ravaged by the creatures. Along with Regan's brother Marcus (Noah Jupe) and the new baby, the family head off in search of other survivors. They meet up with their neighbor Emmett (Cilian Murphy), and learn that many other human survivors have turned feral and dangerous.
Part II gives us a couple of gifts. First, we get a look at Day 1, when the creatures first invaded the Abbott's town, with Krasinski reprising his Lee Abbott role for the flashback. We got a sense of the invasion from Lee's news clippings in the first film, but this flashback gives us a full-on look at the creatures ravaging the small town, killing anything that makes a noise. The other gift is Cilian Murphy. We know, from “28 Days Later,” that this guy knows how to survive an apocalypse, and he shines in this film as a lone survivor who reluctantly helps the Abbotts.
Meanwhile,Millicent Simmonds has really matured as an actress. The deaf, nineteen-year-old easily matches Murphy's intensity and earns her role as the most central character in this sequel. Emily Blunt is excellent as well; she just has a little bit less to do in this film than in the first one.
My only complaints about the film are minor, and they center on Krasinski's work as writer and director. “A Quiet Place” was based on a screenplay by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, with Krasinski directing and doing some re-writes. The film was, in most ways, a riff on the same themes as “Jurassic Park” and “Aliens.” Its main innovation was its emphasis on silence. The Abbotts, and therefore the movie, were as quiet as possible, which was remarkably effective in creating tension. Woods and Beck apparently were not interested in writing a sequel, so Krasinski is wholly responsible for Part II, writing and directing. Right off the bat, he starts with the invasion on Day 1, which is as loud as any action sequence, and the movie rarely gets as quiet as the first film. The exception is a couple of brief but unsettling scenes where we hear the world as Regan hears it, meaning we hear nothing.
My other complaint is that, while Krasinski has created a very effective action film, his sequel hardly advances the “A Quiet Place” story at all. After an hour and a half, I found that I hardly knew any more about the creatures or about the fate of mankind than I did at the end of the first film. I said above that “A Quiet Place” demanded a sequel, but in truth, it would be possible, as Bryan Woods and Scott Beck did, to call it a day after the first film, to let your imagination take it from there. “A Quiet Place Part II” however, really does demand a sequel, as it develops the characters without advancing the story much at all. We need to know where these creatures come from, why (as pointed out in the first film) they don't eat their victims, and whether mankind and the Abbotts will survive.
We will have to wait a bit for all that. “A Quiet Place Part III” is slated for 2025. Meanwhile, there is talk of a spin-off film called “A Quiet Place: Day One” to be released in 2024. I'm a bit skeptical that a spin-off is warranted here, but, as good as these films are, you can bet I'll be watching!
3.5 stars out of 5
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