A Quiet Place (2018) ****

Jon Krasinski (Jim, from “The Office”-U.S.) directs and stars in this post-apocalyptic tale of a family surviving an alien invasion. Cleverly, the story skips all the explosions, military battles, President speeches and other Michael Bay-style end-of-the-world stuff (ironic, as Michael Bay is one of the producers). Instead, the film starts on day 89 of the End Times, in a world of necessary silence, where monstrous, blind aliens hunt by sound alone. The Abbott family has managed to survive, partly because their daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), is deaf, so the whole family speaks sign language. They may be uniquely situated to adapt to this reality, but it's still a tenuous existence, even more so when we skip ahead a year to find Evelyn (Emily Blunt) pregnant. It's hard enough to keep older kids quiet; how will they keep a new baby from crying?

“A Quiet Place” works on many levels. First, it's a good monster movie. We slowly get introduced to the aliens, which are truly terrifying. They are massive, fast, and bulletproof. With no known manner of self-defense, humans live in fear of them the way rabbits fear coyotes. But the Abbotts don't merely cower in the shadows. In defiance of the day-to-day terror of making a single noise, they have pressed on with life, maintaining soft, dirt paths, making cloth gamepieces for their board games, and, of course, choosing to have another child. (Evelyn displays enough medical knowledge that we assume she could have induced an abortion if she chose.)

Krasinski does a really good job directing here, including choosing to go without a score for the first 30 minutes of the film, so we can truly appreciate the near-silence of the Abbotts' world. The small cast, including the child actors, is excellent. The story is compelling, and the ending is perfect. (Krasinski does borrow some cues from the “Aliens” movies and from Spielberg's “Jurassic Park,” but he does it well, and I'm not gonna count it against him.) “A Quiet Place” is a solid flick that will keep you on the edge of your seat, hand cupped to your ear.

4 stars out of 5