A Quiet Place Part II achieves the most difficult part of a sequel, working perfectly as a compansion, but expanding on the Quiet Placeverse and bringing all of the tension and jump scares! John Krasinkski gives a short introduction welcoming theater goers back to the movies. This is the film that is critical to see in a theater, enclosed, dark, with others sharing in the Quiet experience. The original A Quiet Place (2018) featured writers Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, but this movie features Krasinkski taking on the script alone and directing. The original movie just left expectations with what happened to the family. This film seems more closed, except if it goes into the nature of the creatures. Spoilers for the original! It opens in an empty town, we hear the flapping of an American flag, the creak of hanging street light, and it’s blinking clinks. The sound design is impressive in this film, credit to sound designer, Malte Bieler, supervising sound editor, Erik Aadahl, returning, and sound effects editors Matt Cavanaugh and Chris Diebold. We see a truck park and out comes the father of the family, Lee Abbott (Krasinski). This is a welcome return for his character, we saw him die in A Quiet Place, but this is a flashback.
He goes into a pharmacy and buys some oranges and passes the space shuttle toy that was critical in the first film. Lee picks up some water bottles. He sees the owners watching some kind of accident on television. Lee passes a German Shepherd in the back of a truck and heads down an alley to reach a baseball field. He is late for bringing the oranges to the players. He meets with his wife, Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and their son, Beau. Blunt is in the upcoming Jungle Cruise. Lee joins his daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), the actress was in an episode of the dramatic series This Close. They communicate through American Sign Language with Simmonds, a deaf actress. There is some scenes where it is from Regan's perspective which is brilliant, it adds to the tension when the sounds that draw the creatures can't be heard by your protagonist. Lee sees his friend, Emmett (Cillian Murphy) is watching his son play. Murphy stars in the crime drama, Peaky Blinders, and is an incredible actor, but I consider this his best part. Evelyn’s son, Marcus (Noah Jupe) is nervous going up at bat. Jupe was in Ford v Ferrari (2019).
Evelyn tries to sign for Marcus to be calm. His character arc is to overcome his later fear and pain to act in confidence. Marcus strikes out, again Evelyn signs calm for him, and then he sees a massive object descending in the sky! This is the arrival of the creatures, unnamed, but I think of them as Harpies, a bird-woman in Greek myth whose songs lure people to their deaths. The creatures appearance is a great design carried over from the first movie. They are still strange, vicious, and unpredictable. The Harpies' origin is mysterious, but I would think they are an advance force to kill off populations. They seem unintelligent creatures so I think some extraterrestrial intelligence sends them down possibly to eliminate problems so they can collect resources. Lee takes away Regan in the panic. Evelyn runs with Marcus and Beau. I like the pairing of child and parent. They scramble to escape, the dogs bark at the presence of the creatures, Lee and Regan see the rampage of the creatures. A police officer tries to shoot them. They are invulnerable until forced to open their petal-like heads, but vicious with their claws. People are torn from the street.
Lee runs with his daughter into a restaurant and takes cover under a table. There are other townspeople hiding, a teen girl is on the phone, Lee covers the mouth of a man whispering a prayer. A creature is prowling outside the restaurant’s window. A noise gets it’s attention and it shatters through the window. The Harpy, that’s my name for it, starts slashing apart people. Lee and Regan run out the back door and hop a fence. Evelyn and Marcus are in the family station wagon. We get the passenger perspective in one masterful long shot as Evelyn drives through the chaotic streets. The director of photography is Polly Morgan who also worked on the sci fi movie, Lucy in the Sky (2019). It reminds of the continous shot, also in a car, featured in Alfronso Cuarón sci fi epic, Children of Men (2006). She tries to swerve through traffic and people attacked by the creatures. Then, has to back up when a bus is about to hit them! This is day 1 of the invasion. Marcus screams and this cuts to the end of the first movie. Editing is by Michael P. Shawver who was also one of the editors on Black Panther (2018).
We found in A Quiet Place that Lee was working on a hearing aid, a chochlear implant for his daughter. It also turned into a weapon which we see here, Regan places it on a speaker to amplify the sound that causes pain to the Harpy. It’s petals open leaving a vulnerable head region that Evelyn blasts with a shotgun. This is a minor victory since the family still has to survive against the creatures. Evelyn takes the family to the burning barn and has her children stay outside. She takes in new baby with her. Regan leaves to find her father’s research on the Harpies and map to other signal fires around the area. She takes the chochlear implant and speaker. Regan’s strategy is take up her father’s work and find a way to strike back at the Harpies. Evelyn puts an oxygen mask on her baby and then goes into the flooded basement to pick up an oxygen tank. Regan goes up to light the signal fire and work out a direction the family can go for help. They are able to walk past the line of white sand onto leaf covered roads and finally to an abandoned steel mill. The brilliance of the Quiet Placeverse is offering a vision of the apocalyptic world that was attempted in Walking Dead, but here brings all of the range of despair, hope, a paradise, and a beginning. A Quiet Place Part 2 has a fascinating world, enough creatures and jump scares, plus some incredible acting by all of the cast!
Five Cochlear Implants out of Five!
#AQuietPlacePart2, #JohnKrasinski, #MillicentSimmonds, #CillianMurphy, #EmilyBlunt, #NoahJupe.
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