OnScreen Review: "A Quiet Place Part II"
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
After the critically and financially successful release of A Quiet Place in 2018, and multiple delays due to a global pandemic, A Quiet Place Part II has finally seen the light of day. Much like the Abbot family, people are quietly venturing out of their home and re-entering the movie theaters, and this eagerly anticipated sequel arriving on Memorial Day weekend is best reason to go to the nearby cineplex and shared the communal experience of seeing a movie together that we’ve had in quite a while.
Picking up moments after the ending of the last film, Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt), along with her daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), son Marcus (Noah Jupe), and newborn, sets off from the burning remains of their family farm to try and join up with any other survivors of the monsters that have depleted most of the earth’s population. They come across Emmett (Cillian Murphy), someone shown in the opening flashback as having been a friend of Lee Abbott (John Krasinski). While tentatively holed up with Emmett, they hear a radio signal that leads Regan to believe that there may be others out there who are safe and can help. Despite her deafness, the monsters, and the dangerous humans who have managed to survive, she is willing to take extreme action to try and reach the source of the signal.
What made the first film so effective was its soundscape; a movie that is littered with alien monsters that have exceptional hearing drew the audience in and had viewers sitting with bated breath. It’s one of the few movie-going experiences I’ve been in where you could hear a pin drop because the entire audience was locked in. Much of that is still true of this sequel. The survivors still have to keep quiet as much as possible. While a way to fight back against the monsters was discovered at the end of the first film, it is not like there was an Independence Day moment with Robert Loggia saying, “Tell them how to bring those sons of bitches down.” The ending of the first movie is not the defeat of monsters, but it is a painful disorientation that can give someone an opening to fight back.
While the odds have tipped back a bit more in favor of the humans, there are still plenty of moments where people will be on the edge of their seats with anticipation as the film ratchets up the tension through the use of sound and effective jump scares. Other studios have taken to releasing some of their movies directly to streaming or simultaneously in theaters and on streaming during the Covid pandemic. It was a smart move to resist doing so with A Quiet Place Part II because it lends itself so well to the communal viewing experience that is only available in a movie theater. There is nothing better than being startled in your theater chair or seeing someone in the row in front of you jump at something on screen. A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II are in that rare class of the modern movies where the scares feel earned and not cheap.
All of the relevant cast members from the first film return in at least one form or another. Emily Blunt continues to be one of Hollywood’s most versatile actresses, completely believable in a comedy, drama, action, or horror movie. Meanwhile, Millicent Simmonds continues to be one of my personal favorite young actresses. Her role in the movie, and the franchise such as it is, is crucial to the story. As a deaf actress, her ability to emote and convey so much through her face is so impressive for a teen actress. My continued hope is that Hollywood manages to find suitable roles for her or create suitable roles for her considerable talent. Simmonds gets the chance to be the true heroine of this story; not just because the circumstances demand it of her, but because of her motivation, explained in a simple line that connects her back to her dad. Jupe is also a talented young actor, and he gets to take Marcus on a journey of discovering the courage he has within himself, empowered to do so by the actions of his sister and the gentle encouragement of his mother. Cillian Murphy is a terrific addition to the cast. As Emmett, he brings a new outsider’s perspective to the world that isn’t that of this isolated family. He’s experienced his own tribulations and has his own grief and loss to work through. Given his post-apocalyptic turn in 28 Days Later, it’s nice to see Murphy back in this survivalist mode.
John Krasinski returned as the writer and director of this sequel, and like its predecessor, it is a lean affair clocking in at around one and a half hours in length. Krasinski has shown promise as a director. What impressed me this time around was how the film weaves in and out of character perspective by having the sound drop out as the focus of a scene may shift from one character to Regan, putting the viewer into her silent world. He also does a nice job of pacing the film whether it be in the flashback where we see the chaos of the initial invasion of these creatures or in the present day when characters have splintered off into their own paths of the story. Sometimes a movie can have characters spread out doing their thing and you suddenly realize that the movie hasn’t checked in with one group of characters in 15 or 20 minutes, almost as though the movie started to forget about then. But the threads are seamlessly blended together here. Also, the movie embraces an old sci-fi tradition of the earth itself being a natural defense against alien invaders, similar to War of the Worlds or Signs.
There was and is a lot riding on A Quiet Place Part II. As a sequel, it’s widening the aperture to see a bit more of the world established in the first movie. As a piece of intellectual property, it’s needs to build off of the success of the previous film. And as the first big release in theaters as the world slowly begins to open back up, it’s the test balloon for studios trying to bring audiences back to movie theaters. By almost all metrics, A Quiet Place Part II steps out into the unknown and succeeds in its mission.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars