A Quiet Place: Part II
Director: John Krasinski
Writer: John Krasinksi, Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Starring: Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmons (the breakout star and patron saint of this movie if there is one), Cillian Murphy, Noah Jupe John Krasinksi, Djimon Hounsou, Scoot McNairy
Reason for watching: new release….AFTER WAITING FOURTEEN MONTHS FOR IT!! This was the earliest movie on the 2020 calendar to get pushed back because of the Coronavirus Pandemic
Number of times I’ve watched it: first time viewing…until I see again this week. lol
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There’s an oddness to this movie and its release. Like everything that was meant to happen in 2020, it was drastically changed. I can remember at least four different release dates planned for this movie, each one constantly pushing the date back to help people get into theaters to see it. At one point I thought I would never get to see it on the big screen. Paramount + was releasing soon, and putting a big tentpole movie like this on their service would be a great way to get subscribers. Thankfully, the producers and big wigs behind this movie decided to step in in a BIG way. When the F9 vacated Memorial Day weekend of 2021, A Quiet Place: Part II took its place and was going to be one of the first big movies to release in 2021. Having seen it now, I know why it got pushed back. The movie was a blockbuster waiting to burst onto the scene and endear itself to the hearts of the moviegoers.
The movie picks up right where the original left off. With their farm destroyed, Evelyn Abbot (Emily Blunt) leads her two teenage kids and her infant child into the unknown parts of the world near them. They run into an old friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy) who has taken up a new residence in a steel mill nearby. Due to a boobie trap Emmett had set up, Marcus (Noah Jupe) is injured. Upon discovering a radio signal playing “Beyond the sea,” Regan (Millicent Simmons) sets out to find the source of the signal, believing it to be on an island just off the shore near where they live. Evelyn can’t go after Regan herself so she begs Emmett to do so. But upon finding Regan, Emmett decides to help her get to this island in hopes of the feedback from her hearing aid to broadcast a frequency that can kill the mosters.
Right away in this movie you can tell how much higher the production value is. Due to the financial success of the original Queit Place (and presumably the success of this sequel), more money was put into Director John Krasinksi’s hands. He used this to invest in better action set pieces, expanding the world, and most importantly fleshing out what the monsters look like in broad dayling. One of the legitimate criticisms of the original movie is that you hardly get to see the monsters except for in the dark, which is a telltale sign of a movie not trusting the CGI available to it. But now we really get to see how powerful the monsters are. The best use of all these improvements is in a prologue where we get to see how all of the chaos unfolded on the very first day when the monsters invaded
I have to praise the lead performance as well, particularly of Millicent Simmons and Noah Jupe. With Krasinksi himself barely in the movie aside from the aforementioned flash-forward, their character growth and development is key here. Blunt still delivers as a capable mother who will do anything for her children, and Murphy is an excellent addition as a broken survivor who did not handle the apocalypse nearly as well as the Abbott family did.
While I could talk about the numerous examples of quality acting, strong CGI work, or well done set pieces, the standout part of the movie has to be how the theme of the first movie grew in this sequel. Krasinski has gone on record saying how this movie is a “love letter” to his children, and you see that throughout as the point of the movie is to show how much a parent would do for their children. Sheesh all you have to do is see Lee’s death scene, and you’ll know what that movie is about. But one of the challenging pieces for a sequel to any successful property is to figure out where to go from a great theme. A Quiet Place: Part II nails it. We still see Evelyn protect her children, but we also get to see how strong her children have become and what they do to overcome their weakness. I am certainly not a parent, but I know some of my fondest memories with my parents are when my own parents tell me they were proud of me and what I have accomplished. It is not hard to imagine how proud a parent becomes when they see their child grow up in front of them. That is what we get here: children growing up right in front of their parents.
This is a great sequel. In my opinion (and I know this is an early reaction), it belongs in the pantheon of great sequel discussions. Hopefully with time I will be proven right.
9/10
Until I see another one