A Quiet Place Part II (2021)

By: Mike Ward on Thursday, May 27

PG-13 Running Time: 97 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

If you are a fan of A Quiet Place, this sequel is everything you want it to be and possibly more.
The Quiet Place series does not get enough credit for its technical proficiency. The sound design, editing, and production design is stellar and creates a unrelentingly tense atmosphere.
Terrific performances abound, but especially from Millicent Simmonds - Krasinski gives a significant amount of the movie to her - and she is nothing short of fantastic.

NO

I mean…if you did not like the first film. This is not going to be your jam.
As the option remains alive for A Quiet Place Part III, some have criticized the film series as singularly focused and seemingly repeating the same thrills and scares over and over again.
Those sensitive to jump scares, the film has plenty of them. Often brilliantly timed and deployed, but plenty of them.

OUR REVIEW

As we begin to step back into movie theaters, it is interesting that horror movies are among the first high-profile options for people to consider viewing. With Spiral: From the Book of Saw currently in theaters, and the upcoming eighth film in The Conjuring franchise arriving on June 4, John Krasinski’s long-awaited A Quiet Place Part II nestles in between both films as a major test to see how many people are getting ready to return to the multiplex.

Horror films have remained a constant viewing option through the pandemic - there has been no shortage of these films to find and consume. With no PVOD or streaming option for 45 days (the film will land on Paramount+ in July), A Quiet Place Part II must be seen in a theater. For those making that choice, Krasinski’s sequel is a heart-racing film of great intensity, often terrifying and full of unrelenting scares and jaw-dropping surprises.

After a prologue puts the events from the first film in greater context, we pick up right where things left off at the end of A Quiet Place. In survival mode, Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt), her infant son and two teenage children – Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe) – are in the basement of their family home having just discovered the way sound and feedback (and gunshot blasts to the head) can impact the alien creatures who have decimated Earth.

I should probably mention here that if you have missed A Quiet Place, go nab a rental of it for $2.99 and come back when you’re finished. It’s okay. I’ll be here.

The premise of the film remains: The vicious, bloodthirsty aliens are blind and only respond when they hear a sound. They move rapidly and skewer and chomp and decimate anything in its path. If you’re quiet, they leave you alone. They are stealth and you never quite know where they are, except that the creatures appear to be everywhere.

Evelyn finds the need to relocate her family after the Abbott home is destroyed from the alien attacks of the first film. Carefully walking through the woods, with some backpacks full of supplies, a speaker and microphone, and a powerful rifle in their clutches, the family reconnects with an old friend Hobbs (Cillian Murphy) who is grappling with his own sense of fear and tragic loss.

Hobbs lives in a massive underground bunker he begrudgingly lets the Abbotts move into, but calm only comes for fleeting moments. Hobbs advises that the bunker is safe unless the aliens are directly above the room (foreshadowing future events, of course).

Krasinski’s sense of control over the tempo and atmosphere of his film is masterful. The film leaves us trapped within a world defined by stunning sound design and pin-point, precise editing. The sound design work, for one, is essential in drawing us back into the post-apocalyptic Hell the Abbotts find themselves desperate to survive. Every noise, every step, every hint of a noise has us cringing, flinching, and hoping that the noises we are privy to hearing have gone undetected.

Smartly, Krasinski’s screenplay shifts focus from Evelyn’s story and straps much of A Quiet Place Part II on the backs of his young actors. Simmonds is exceptional; deaf in real life, her performance is that of the classic underdog. She is simply outstanding in depicting the way she learns to react to circumstances increasingly challenging for her. As Regan, she also instills much of what was learned from her father and his efforts to combat the creatures in the first film.

As she ventures away from the family, Jupe’s Marcus grapples with debilitating anxiety and fear, but recognizes the need to step up to try and protect his family and infant baby brother. Krasinski has said that, in a weird way, A Quiet Place Part II is a gift for his children. That trust and belief in his younger actors pays off, with the sequel perhaps a stronger film in how it empowers its younger characters to become resourceful and develop inner and outer strength.

As much as I loved A Quiet Place, and found it to be among the best films of 2018, I found the sequel just as unnerving and just as intense. The movie does weaken a bit when the film advances to a quasi-Utopian island where we discover a different way of living in reaction to the aliens’ arrival. Unfortunately, Krasinski’s idea here gets the better of him and a telegraphed obviousness takes over the film for a few crucial minutes.

Seeing the film during a global pandemic where isolation, loss, and lingering mental health and well-being concerns have been a part of everyone’s daily lives, a friend and fellow critic remarked how impactful the film was to experience having been released in May 2021, as opposed to the original release date of March 2020.

Which is precisely what Krasinski has created - a horror film emblematic of something dangerous in the world to fear, existing largely outside of our control, which determines how our very actions define our survival.

A chilling metaphor for the times we find ourselves in, A Quiet Place Part II is one frightening, efficiently paced thriller you’ll be thinking about long after it comes to an end.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cillian Murphy, Djimon Hounsou, Scoot McNairy, John Krasinski.

Director: John Krasinski
Written by: John Krasinski
Based on characters created for the film “A Quiet Place” by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
Release Date: May 28, 2021
Paramount Pictures

If you are a fan of A Quiet Place, this sequel is everything you want it to be and possibly more.

The Quiet Place series does not get enough credit for its technical proficiency. The sound design, editing, and production design is stellar and creates a unrelentingly tense atmosphere.

Terrific performances abound, but especially from Millicent Simmonds - Krasinski gives a significant amount of the movie to her - and she is nothing short of fantastic.

I mean…if you did not like the first film. This is not going to be your jam.

As the option remains alive for A Quiet Place Part III, some have criticized the film series as singularly focused and seemingly repeating the same thrills and scares over and over again.

Those sensitive to jump scares, the film has plenty of them. Often brilliantly timed and deployed, but plenty of them.