PG-13 | 1h 40m | Thriller, Science Fiction, Drama | June 28, 2024
Known primarily as a cast member of the NBC sitcom “The Office,” John Krasinski shocked audiences with his 2018 monster movie, “A Quiet Place.” The first film took place on days 89 and 472 in the aftermath of an alien attack on the planet and was good enough to spawn a rousing sequel.
As far as I was concerned, the “A Quiet Place” franchise hit its high point when Emily Blunt’s character gave birth in a bathtub, with a deadly, micro-decibel-detecting alien lurking nearby. Make a peep—you get munched. And what is birth, really, if a woman can’t (if she feels like it) scream bloody murder? How do you top that kind of tension, generated by the world-class actress Emily Blunt?
Now that this monster franchise is on its third installment, featuring a prequel involving a few new characters in Manhattan on the first day of the invasion—the thrill is gone.
What Are They Again, Exactly?
There were always questions about the bat-crossed-with-Pterodactyl creatures and their radar-dish heads. The franchise, like everything nowadays, has spawned its own universe of Quiet Place geeks who question, debate issues, and shoot holes in the screenplay’s “logic.” But the creatures are not this movie’s problem.What the original “A Quiet Place” had going for it was the initial mystery of it all. We were simply dropped into an apocalyptic near-future that had one rule: You make noise, you die. Copy that.
Lack of information worked strongly in its favor. We got to know a family in monster-survival mode. The sequel worked mostly because it simply and smartly chose to extend that same journey, picking up exactly where it left off.
New Cast
“A Quiet Place: Day One,” shifts focus from the Abbott family (the real-life movie-star married couple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, with Krasinski directing) to a new character named Samira (Lupita Nyong’o), who’s languishing in an oncology ward, with a therapy cat named Frodo. Samira’s been feeling sarcastic, bitter, and mean-spirited lately (ya think?).
Director Sarnoski decided to continue the previous two movie’s avoidance of getting into the who, what, why, where questions regarding the monsters. In fact, he barely addresses how everyone figures out that they need to be quiet. That needed to be the main focus of the prequel, because the Manhattanites are entirely unaware that if bat-Pterodactyls hear a pin drop, they'll swarm out of nowhere and snack on your head.
Harlem-bound
The story quickly boils down to Samira and Eric (Joseph Quinn), a suit-wearing British bro who simply can’t be alone and attaches himself to Samira and Frodo (are you seeing the Sam and Frodo joke? It took me a while). Sam’s got one goal: to survive long enough to make it back to the Harlem neighborhood of her youth. She'd like to see, one last time, the jazz club her dad used to play piano at. And her favorite pizza place.It’s an interesting concept, the idea of what a terminally ill patient might do with the remaining time on earth before inevitably getting eaten. Nyong’o is compelling and heartbreaking in her attempted, feeble stroll down memory lane. There’s a beauty in the simplicity and insanity of it.
‘A Quiet Place’
One of the main problems is that “Day One” would like to be both a meditative character study and a thrilling monster movie that ups the ante on monsters, jump scares, carnage, was well as unsettling 9-11 type visuals.All of the above never quite mesh though, the result being that the ravenous, flailing ear-monsters function as a monster-MacGuffin—just pick a random danger, and you could place this duo (or trio counting the cat) at the center of it.
While the whole thing was too predictable, what I appreciate about this franchise are its meta-implications. Anyone who’s studied meditation knows that one must strive to still the mind. No thoughts. No talking in your head—be vewwwy, vewwwy quiiiiet. And anyone who’s steeped in religion or following a spiritual path will also be a believer in demons. Some say demons can, like these monsters, hear our thoughts and latch on to specific thoughts and cause mischief. C.S. Lewis wrote “The Screwtape Letters” about this.
I’m just saying I appreciate this franchise’s unintentional reminder that the scientifically proven best state of the human mind, for all intents and purposes, is to consistently guard and maintain it as a quiet place.
