The first Quiet Place was a revelation, generating all sorts of terror out of complete silence. So now John Krasinski and Emily Blunt enter tricky sequel territory: trying not to recreate the first but also trying not to overbloat your sequel. For the most part, Part II finds a nice balance between expanding the story but not forgetting why people loved the first movie. And, remember, SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH!!
After a terrifying prologue about what Day 1 was like when the aliens arrived, we fast forward to the aftermath of the first movie. With their little barn/supplies destroyed, Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and her two kids Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe) realize they can’t stay there. Looking at their deceased father’s maps, they venture toward the ocean, and run into an old friend from their town Emmett (Cillian Murphy), who they hope can help give them some updates about what’s happening around the planet.
One of the reasons A Quiet Place was so effective was because of how simple and powerful the premise was: easy to understand but important in equal measure. Part II goes for the same idea: this time, the message is “Is the world worth saving?”. This is where a little bit of luck help’s Krasinski’s film. Despite postponing his theater opening, the movie was delayed because of a global pandemic that has killed a significant percentage of the population, and questions like that come up as our perspective is forever altered. In the movie like in life today, we have to decide a new way to live. Is life just now about pure survival mode, or can we group together and live fuller, better lives? A lot of the movie heavy lifting gets shifted here onto the kids, Noah Jupe and Millicent Simmonds, who are ready to carry a blockbuster film despite their age. Supporting them are Krasinski’s wife Emily Blunt, and Cillian Murphy, a certified pro when it comes to wandering post apocalyptic streets alone.
When it comes to world building, A Quiet Place gives us a bigger setting and expands the scope of the story just enough. Krasinski keeps things fresh by introducing a few new interesting sets here: a small Anytown USA on Day 1, a steel mill, a derailed train, a boat dock, and a tiny coastal island. With the reveal of the terrifying creatures at the end of the first movie, Krasinski has a lot of devious fun concocting scares from each of these locations since the novelty is gone from the creature part of the scare equation. The Day 1 stuff in the first 10 minutes is a master class in amplifying tension, lulling us in with a little league baseball game, seeing a fiery “asteroid” landing, and then seeing Emily Blunt driving while a bus careens toward her at 40 miles an hour. Fast forward to the present, and each new location comes with a different wrinkle of an issue or scare to overcome, with ingenious methods to escape the terrifying circumstances each character finds themselves in. We also get a little more backstory on strengths and weaknesses of the aliens, and what has become of society post apocalypse non speaking humanity to help figure out if the world is actually worth saving or not. Like the end of the first movie, we could totally end the story here, or we could continue to get bigger and make The Quietest Place Part III.
While unnecessary, A Quiet Place Part II is still a lot of fun to experience. I was also fortunate enough to be vaccinated and see this movie in a theater, which made the movie a hell of a lot more exciting. I hope all of you get the chance to get vaccinated, and see this movie on the big screen, because those type of shared experiences, when safe, are little ways to show why the world is worth saving post pandemic.