A Quiet Place Part 2 - Movie Review

A Post Apocalyptic Drama with plenty of Horror!

A Quiet Place Part 2 starts off strong, as we see the beginnings of this horrifying apocalypse. I originally thought this film was going to be a prequel as the first 20 minutes show our characters trying to survive the start of the alien invasion, in a small American town. This gave off a War of The World's vibe, and to be honest I really would've loved it, if the whole film was like this, but unfortunately this segment is a flashback, as it skips to the present timeline shortly after; continuing where the first film ended. However, there were a few scenes here that I thought were pretty bad. For example: the father character (John Krasinski) kept bumping into random people in the street trying to escape, but the acting was so awkward it looked like he was purposely bumping into people, grabbing their hands when he could have easily avoided them, it was a bad take and they left it in. Then later in this segment: a monster breaks into a room full of people cowering (easy prey) yet, it decides to run after the father and his daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds) leaving all of the cowering people behind, as the two of them run into the street. It just seemed dumb that a monster like this would leave loads of prey behind to bother chasing two people, when it has an all you can eat buffet right there. However, I feel like I am nitpicking here, as the rest of this opening was pretty cool.

So, now we get into the main story of this film. Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and her children wander further from their last camp and come across a large abandoned factory. What follows is a tense and effective action/horror sequence where they accidentally set off some man made traps that alert one of the monsters, that chases after them, relentlessly. A sniper aims at them the whole time too, and we have no idea if the shooter is going to shoot them, or the monster. They eventually meet this mysterious sniper, who turns out to be an old friend of theirs named Emmet (Played by Cillian Murphy – he was also in the opening flash back) He was a father once and basically takes over as Regan's father figure, as these two go on a The Last of Us style adventure to a mysterious island nearby that has released a distress call from the radio tower that is over there. Speaking of Regan, the film often likes to mute the audio to empathize that she is deaf (in case you forgot) it was somewhat effective in the opening, but really got annoying after the first 5 times (if I didn't know any better, I would've thought that the cinema's audio kept cutting off.) This goes on until the half way point, it is tedious to be honest and this "silence" isn't as chilling as the director thinks it is.

As Regan and Emmet travel towards the shore, the mother orders her son to look after the baby and stay behind, because Emily must leave the underground bunker at the factory and search for supplies, because her son, Marcus (Noah Jupe) is injured. It is around this part of the film that A Quiet Place Part 2 starts to feel more like an adventure film than a horror. so later on, they have a scene where Marcus leaves the baby behind to look for his mother in the middle of the night. This is obviously stupid as he is injured and can't run, it's one of those cliché scenes where a character does something stupid, just so we can have a scene where a monster chases him. Admittedly though, the horror sequence that follows is quite effective with it's dark atmosphere and with the looming threat of the monster, it reminded me a lot of the horror film Alien (especially the monster itself) this idea of our cast having to stay "quiet" from the monsters is really neat, and the horror of that idea is on full display in this particular scene!

Around the third act; the film focuses heavily on Regan and Emmet as they fight off some bandits near the shore in the middle of the night. These bandits have gone crazy (for some reason) as Emmet says: "the people around here have gone mad" but, that's the only explanation we get, these bandits have red rough skin and bloodshot eyes (like they are infected) but they can still talk and use weapons, etc. (So they aren't zombies) however, the film never explains why these people look and act crazy, it's a complete mystery and I don't know if they did this on purpose or if it's just bad exposition. But it feels thrown in to be honest. Like the director felt like the monsters alone weren't scary enough so we needed crazy people thrown into the mix, just to add more horror. I would've liked to have known more about these mad men, but they are only introduced once and are quickly killed off by one of the monsters. Maybe we'll learn more about them in part 3, but in this movie they are underdeveloped. However, I have no more criticisms from this point onward!

The last act takes place on the island that Emmet and Regan finally get to (while occasionally cutting back to Evelyn and her son & baby surviving a monster attack in the factory.) On this island; the film takes a nice break from the constant action and horror, as we meet other survivors on this island. This place is monster free, so it is nice to see Emmet and Regan finally relax and have some fun. We get nice scenes of them talking with each other and there is a decent scene where Emmet and an Islander (Djimon Hounsou) share their experiences in this apocalypse while sitting by a cosy campfire. I appreciate slower moments like this in films as it gives us, the audience, a lot of room to reflect on what we have seen while also dropping us some nice exposition in a very chilled out and easy going way. The next day however, we discover that a monster has followed the boat to this island and we get a really horrific scene as this one beast goes on a killing spree in broad daylight. (These monsters are frighteningly fast and fierce, unstoppable and deadly!) To cut things short; the film ends with our cast of characters discovering a new way of killing the monsters (that I won't spoil here, but the twist was pretty obvious to be honest.)

In Conclusion: I really enjoyed this horror/action flick, it feels more action orientated than the first (like Alien Vs Aliens or 28 days later Vs 28 weeks later) they have clearly upped the stakes and (possibly) budget here, as it feels more epic and has more horror scenes with monsters getting blown up and slaughtered, etc. I do wish we got more flashbacks to how the invasion started (like the opening 20 minutes) but, it is still a very interesting Post Apocalyptic Drama/Horror. But, as mentioned above, I do feel like some of the acting could be more convincing. It still has a lot of those silly horror movie tropes with dumb characters doing stupid things (so that horror scenes can happen, ect.) Maybe it's just because I am a horror movie junkie (plus horror writer) so I can see a lot of the same clichés in these types of films, but it only contains a few jump scares, so at least it's not a jump scare frenzy. The horror here isn't cheap, it's effective and well done! But, I personally feel like the film deserves a 7 out of 10, as it does have it's flaws. But, I think most general audiences won't notice this too much and still enjoy this film as a well paced horror film, with a Post Apocalyptic setting.

Thank you for reading this review, I hope it was insightful! A Quiet Place Part 2 is worth watching, but critics may notice the odd flaw.