A Quiet Place Part II (2021) Movie Review
A Quiet Place Part II (2021) Movie Review
Obviously there hasn’t been a lot to talk about when it comes to big new movies coming out over the past year and a half or so. I saw Tenet in theaters when it was released and tried to write a review, but stopped about halfway through after realizing I just didn’t have enough to say about it to warrant a full-length write-up. At some point early this year I also went to a showing of the original The Thing (which I’ve reviewed), and I went to see Godzilla vs. Kong as well. And that had pretty much been the extent of my theater experiences since coronavirus hit. Now that the pandemic appears to be on the decline (in the United States at least), Hollywood’s movie rollout seems like it’s starting back up again, and just in time for summer. New Conjuring and Fast and Furious movies are coming out soon; the world truly is returning back to normal (am I the only one who thinks The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is sort of a hilarious title?). Additionally, the post-Covid box office record has just been smashed by A Quiet Place II, and I can proudly say that I contributed to this fact by seeing it on opening weekend. Despite its success with both critics and audiences, I can’t necessarily say I expected there to be a sequel to the first Quiet Place movie, although I guess I shouldn’t be terribly surprised, because in this day and age, if anything makes enough money, a sequel is basically guaranteed. The first movie, an effective and suspenseful exercise in survivor horror, definitely impressed me, so naturally I was interested in seeing what the next chapter had to offer. I can also happily report that A Quiet Place II did not disappoint! Maybe the experience of finally being back (erm… again) at the theater is making my view of this film a little more optimistic, but generally I do have a good deal of positive things to say about it.
A Quiet Place II kicks off with a flashback to a time before the events of the first film. Lee Abbott (John Krasinski) shows up late to his son Marcus’s (Noah Jupe) baseball game, and has this fact reported to him by a fellow baseball dad, Emmett (Cillian Murphy). Lee’s wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and their deaf daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) are present as well. All of a sudden, the baseball crowd sees some sort of asteroid hurtling towards earth. Everyone scatters, and soon enough killer aliens are running around all over town, and the age of the aliens begins for the people of earth. Fast forwarding to shortly after the events of the first movie, Evelyn has given birth and the surviving Abbott family sets out from their farm from the first film to try and find other humans. After a painful journey, they encounter the hideout of Emmett, who turns out to still be alive. Emmett reluctantly lets the family stay with him; however, it’s not long before Regan hears Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” on their radio and takes it upon herself to find the people she believes are playing it. Regan ventures out to where she thinks the song is coming from, but is followed by Emmett who has been sent by Evelyn to retrieve her. After a while, Evelyn leaves Marcus and the baby to go fetch supplies, while Emmett sympathizes with Regan and agrees to let her keep searching for the people sending the signal. Eventually, the Abbotts and Emmett, most of them split up for the better part of the second half of the film, have to fight off aliens, aggressive human survivors, and problems stemming from physical injuries.
It’s honestly been a minute since I watched the first Quiet Place movie, but one main difference I could tell between the first and the second, is that the original has more of a sense of dread and emphasis on actually being a horror movie, while Part II is more focused on the trials and tribulations of living in the post-aliens world, to the point where it becomes almost like a drama film. After doing some research, I learned that this movie was filmed in the summer of 2019, which honestly surprised me a little because even while watching the film, it seemed apparent that parallels were being drawn between the world infested with aliens and the real-life coronavirus environment. I think that’s also what makes this movie somewhat “relatable” in a sense; the helpless “when will it end” feeling of the characters prevalent throughout the film is similar to what I think a lot of people have felt about the pandemic (I saw this movie with a friend who literally told me not to write something about the pandemic cause it’d be corny, but whatever). That added sense of what feels almost like empathy for the audience makes this film less intimidating for sure, and it’s not even that scary to begin with – decidedly less so than the first movie which is at least sort of stressful even if it’s not genuinely frightening. Sure, there are jump scares in this movie, but it’s nothing that anyone who’s ever seen a horror movie before can’t handle. Discussing whether this movie is scary or not may seem relatively trivial compared to what I could be talking about concerning the actual “quality” of this film, but I feel like being scary is to a horror movie what being funny is to a comedy movie, sort of like a reflection of its effectiveness. And the truth is, A Quiet Place II just isn’t that scary of a movie, which is I think why it’s better to look at it from the perspective that it’s a thriller/drama film rather than outright horror. Examining it from this angle sort of improves it in my eyes; I have problems with the film that have nothing to do with it not being very scary, but I’ll get to those later. As for its positives, I can confidently say that the acting is particularly commendable, especially Murphy’s performance and that of Simmonds as the deaf girl. Playing a disabled character in a movie is always a challenge, and I think she pulled it off for sure. I have nothing against Emily Blunt, but to be honest her character wasn’t given a whole lot to work with in this movie, and thus there honestly wasn’t much acting for her to even do, although I would say as a whole she showed up to her role. I’ll also say that the cinematography here is very well-done, and that Krasinski seems to be pretty good at the directorial helm. Some of the choices when it comes to the sound of the movie, like the complete silences during some of what would have otherwise been loud moments, are impressive to me and tell me that there was real creativity at play during the making of A Quiet Place II. The set pieces are also worth complimenting, as there are plenty of very cinematic shots of the forest and even bodies of water; this type of beauty is stuff you won’t find in your average horror film.
We’ve reached the part of the review where I usually write my “negative” paragraph. It’s funny, because I did like this movie, but a lot of the specific things I have to say about it are actually criticisms. I guess my biggest problem with A Quiet Place II would be its somewhat abrupt and unsatisfying ending. The ending is supposed to be a happy one, but it just left me confused. It is also glaringly obvious there will be a third film – there’s no way they will just leave the whole Quiet Place story at that. I don’t know why that annoys me the way it does; if they release a third film, I’ll definitely see it, but something about the ending blatantly hinting at a continuation of the story just doesn’t sit right with me for whatever reason. The end of the movie felt like the end of a TV show episode. Obviously there are tons of shows out there, but I specifically got Stranger Things vibes from this movie for two reasons: one being the style of the ending, and the other being the character of Regan, a girl in her early teenage years who uses an abnormality that no other character has to take down the evil aliens. Sound familiar? Another thing about A Quiet Place II is that it answers so frustratingly few of the questions anyone may have had from watching the first film. The only true revelation is that there are indeed other survivors out there, and said survivors seem to be in two groups: animalistic savages who are almost as bad as the aliens themselves, and nice normal people with collared shirts who have barbecues among their little communities. What’s not answered is who these people are, how they got where they ended up, and how they’ve been surviving. Why are the more hostile survivors the way that they are? And what was the point of introducing a friendly survivor character played by Djimon Hounsou if he just ends up going away later in the movie? His inclusion in the movie made no real sense to me. What is also left unanswered is what the aliens even are, where they came from – any of it. All we see in the beginning of the movie is a fiery rock speeding toward earth, then roughly five seconds later there are aliens turning over cars and slashing people to pieces in the streets. Is there something I’m not understanding about all of this? There’s no real context for the alien invasion, and maybe there doesn’t need to be, but I kinda wish they’d at least tried for it to make some sense. The movie is only around an hour and a half, it’s not like the script was too long or something; if they had wanted to answer any of those questions, they could’ve. My last and perhaps most significant complaint would be that eating popcorn during this movie was almost impossible. I wanted to have the movie theater experience, so I bought myself a bag of popcorn only to find the sound of me chewing was about twice as loud as the majority of the actual movie. So if you go and see this movie in theaters, I’d advise against getting food unless you want everyone around you to hear you eat, because this movie is at like a zero decibel level for long periods of time.
Safety chart:
Violence: 7/10 - some bloody/shocking moments including one specific mutilation that makes the nail to the foot scene in the first film look mild. There is violence between the humans and aliens to be expected.
Language: 3/10 - Mild language, nothing super memorable.
Drinking/smoking: 1/10 - One character has a bottle of alcohol.
A Quiet Place II is definitely a very solid and ultimately worthwhile thriller movie that isn’t the scariest or most satisfying film ever released but gets the job done nonetheless. There are definitely things I wanted from this movie that I didn’t end up getting, but I’m very glad I went and saw this movie. If you miss the theater, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this movie to you. The filmmaking is tight and the story never gets boring. At its relatively short runtime, A Quiet Place II manages to keep the action going at a consistent rate and stay entertaining throughout. I think we’ve finally simultaneously reached the first wave of big movies that are being released since the pandemic started, and also the first wave of movies that subtly deal with the themes of hopelessness and isolation in a way that reminds us of the pandemic; A Quiet Place II spearheads both of those waves. I would give this movie a B as a grade, maybe a B+. If you’re a fan of horror/thriller films or even drama movies I would say this is a good fit for you. A third Quiet Place film hasn’t been announced, but maybe I’ll see some of you at the theater when it inevitably comes out.
