(Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
Wade and Mark slam their first return to a theater for the much-delayed sequel to actor/writer/director John Krasinski’s 2018 hit monster flick.
WADE MAJOR: So we’re slamming now, yes? Okay, here’s the thing (that’s me doing you, by the way): if you saw and liked the first film, you’ll like this one. And if you didn’t — no reason to see this one. They set up a sequel and this pays off that setup. The two films go together like hand in glove, and — SPOILERS HERE — if you weren’t put off by the gimmicks the first time around, you obviously won’t be put off by them here. Is it absurd that the deaf daughter discovers that her hearing aids just happen to tap the frequency (or whatever) that sends the monsters into screaming fits of agony so that their impenetrable skull armor exposes the fleshy interior which can then be handily blown apart off in grand cinematic fashion with a pump-action shotgun? Of course. It’s the same gimmick as in “Mars Attacks!” except there the discovery that Whit Stillman’s yodeling made Martian heads explode was played for laughs… because it’s ridiculous. And this is ridiculous, too. It’s just not played for laughs. And they largely get away with it because the actress — Millicent Simmonds (who is actually deaf) — is a damn fine actress. You’re rooting for her. You love her. She could be tickling the monsters to death with a feather duster — we wouldn’t care. We’re on her team.
So all of that out of the way — SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS! — here’s what I liked about this one, despite having all the same misgivings the various contrivances that are now simply part of the story. It goes back in time to “Day 1” and fills in those blanks a bit. That enables us to get John Krasinski back in the mix and to help set up where this story goes as well. Smart move. Emotionally anchors us in what’s been lost. Reminds us where things were — and where they are now after a year and a half. The Cillian Murphy character as counterpoint to Krasinski reminds us not all dads are heroic — but all can step up and become heroic when called on. Some good range in that character. I like that there are new questions regarding how these alien monsters came to earth. That sets up a third film, which will get made and will hopefully complete something of a trilogy.
The set pieces and the cross-cutting prove Krasinski is a serious filmmaker. He aced the first film, he aces this one. He knows his tools. He’s the real deal. Sure, the baby stuff is all mostly contrived for sympathy and the usual jeopardy tropes, but so it was in the last film, too.
What I didn’t like? Djimon Hounsou is a seriously great actor. Introducing him on the sanctuary island where the radio station lives — basically a variation on “The Road Warrior” outpost — was a delightful surprise. Having him lose his composure and get killed in the most routine and predictable fashion since Harry Dean Stanton in “Alien” was a serious waste.
But look — it borrows from everything — “Alien” and “Aliens,” the “Jurassic Park” and “Jurassic World” movies, the aforementioned “Mars Attacks!” and just about every post-apocalyptic zombie movie we’ve ever seen. Except it knows it, the audience knows it and it owns it. It’s not trying to be something it’s not. And it’s totally owning everything that it is. There’s popcorn value in that, and the fact that it’s so expertly put together makes it a seriously refreshing way to emerge from the pandemic.
Lest we bury the lede here — this is the first film since before the pandemic that you and I both saw at an honest-to-god press screening. In a theater. With other critics. Big screen. Projected. And that’s how the movie is being released — no streaming, no VOD… only in theaters. As it should be. This is a big-screen experience and it’s an anticipated sequel, so it’s a great lure to break people out of their complacency and get them back into the experience we all love so dearly.
So I’m fully supportive across the board.
MARK KEIZER: Before I get into the specifics of the film (I’m generally in agreement with Wade, although the film’s downsides bother me more than they did him) let me also say that the screening for “A Quiet Place Part II” marks the first time I’ve set foot in a movie theater in over 16 months. And I’m someone who, like Wade, sees well over a 100 projected movies a year. So I practically live in a movie theater and, dammit, I miss my home. It’s a place where I can be with like-minded strangers who share a common love and purpose. A place where we congregate for a communal experience that, at its best (and at its worst), effects us in ways that living room moviegoing never can.
Everyone in that Century City, CA theater where I saw “A Quiet Place Part II”, I will most likely never see again. But they are now an integral and unforgettable part of my personal history: they helped reintegrate me into moviegoing culture, reminded me why I love the moviegoing experience and they allowed me to bask in my first projected film in more than a year due to a once in a lifetime, worldwide pandemic that has killed (as of this writing) 587,000 Americans. Without them, I’m just a guy watching a movie by himself in his living room. I never want to be that guy again.
So there is a certain elegance, or maybe irony, in retreating from a quiet Los Angeles, entering a quiet movie theater and watching a film where being quiet is the only way to stay alive. The 2018 original, though, made a lot of noise, a sleeper hit that was masterfully simple in concept yet told with a gut-churning intensity and lean directorial style that struck a surprisingly mature balance between character and scares. It announced the arrival of “that guy from The Office”, John Krasinski, as a real-deal film director who can turn the screws with the best of them. Unsurprisingly most of the major elements that made the original film so effective return this time around. The question, of course, is where will Krasinski (who takes sole writing credit here after sharing credit with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck on the original) take the surviving members of the Abbott family following the death of their patriarch Lee (Krasinski)? Turns out that destination is only moderately interesting, although it begins with a bang. Echoing Wade’s comments, kicking things off with the initial arrival of the aliens is a clever move. In the first film, the aliens were only seen in glimpses. Here, they’re front and center within the first 10 minutes, menacingly attuned to the faintest of whispers that may flutter across the lips of Evelyn (Emily Blunt), her son Marcus (Noah Jupe) and her hearing-impaired daughter Regan (MVP Millicent Simmonds).
When the story proper kicks in, 474 days after the aliens arrived, I quickly found myself wondering if this was the most interesting direction to take this sequel, which involves sending the family in two different directions: Regan and the Abbott’s bitter friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy) are off to find an island where survivors live in peace while Evelyn and Marcus basically hang around trying not to get slaughtered. Despite Krasinski’s continued hold over us, his film has a “middle chapter” feel to it, one that doesn’t advance the overall story to any great degree although it empowers the Abbott’s two children in a satisfying way. Wade, am I being hard on the story? Or is my feeling of slightly diminishing returns justified?
WADE MAJOR: No, that about nails it down. It’s a generally satisfying saga to this point because it’s built on a solid, if derivative foundation, and doesn’t dry to deviate too far from the tried and true. Sure, there are holes — but they are deficiencies we’re accustomed to in the genre, and we’re willing to forgive them here because Krasinski is such a damned, good-natured and likable guy — even when he’s not on screen, we feel his enthusiasm. And let’s face it — he’s a solid craftsman.
What I’m interested to see is how the third installment pans out — as it’s quite clear this is designed to be a trilogy. The original film’s script may not have anticipated that, as it ended just open-ended enough to allow for a sequel — but to also furnish closure just in case there was no appetite for a sequel. Now that a sequel was deemed justified, they did the “John Wick” thing and went for broke — leaning hard into a third installment by answering questions from the first film with more open-ended questions in the second that now absolutely necessitate a final installment. That’s just smart studio filmmaking, and I do think they’ve set themselves up for a much more interesting conclusion. So I’m hopeful they’ll get it done.
MARK KEIZER: It sure is smart studio filmmaking although I do wonder if this was originally designed to be a trilogy. If this were a three-film pitch from Krasinski, I can’t imagine the studio thought this second installment upped the ante in any intriguing way. There is no “death of Spock” from Star Trek II or “I am your father” from “The Empire Strikes Back” to make us count the days until a third and final film. The movie ends on a character note, which speaks to Krasinski’s maturity as a filmmaker, but not on a cliffhanger, nor did the film introduce any story point that had me wondering what’ll happen next. Speaking of character notes, one can only hope the conclusion involves Regan being named President of Earth because she seems to be only person who knows how to fight the aliens. But, as Wade mentioned, one is inclined to forgive such incredulities because everything else is so well-mounted and there is sufficient goodwill from the first film to get us through this film. Plus, as someone who grew up gorging on Cold War-era end of the world cinema, the genre never ceases to interest me.
Indeed, as solid as Emily Blunt is, playing essentially the Ellen Riley role from the “Alien” series and carrying the sequel by virtue of her talent and star wattage, Simmonds steals the show. Regan is her father’s daughter; fearless and self-sacrificing. As she takes command of her half of the film, we realize that “A Quiet Place Part II” is, at its core, a heart-pounding, alien-infused, thoroughly absorbing coming of age story. Whether, in anything resembling real life, she would have died while tip-toeing around an abandoned, corpse-ladened train (which a deaf person surely would have) becomes irrelevant. Although to digress, which is the want of these Tomato Slams, very relevant is the idea that the characters walk around without shoes. I’m no survivor of an alien invasion but I am the survivor of many stubbed toes and wouldn’t it be better to steal some boots, or even a pair of slippers, from a dead person than to walk around detritus-filled wooded areas in bare feet and risk impaling your foot on a tiny thorn and yelling in pain?
In summation, your honor, while there doesn’t seem to be an overall storytelling plan at work, which robs the series as a whole of momentum, there’s still a satisfying sense of old-fashioned craftsmanship that Krasinski brings to both films that really puts to shame the more modern takes on horror (I’m looking at you, every shaky-cam horror film). And despite the jump scares, the chest-tightening suspense and ceaseless feeling of unease, I don’t see Krasinski as a horror filmmaker…which is precisely why these movies work.
Now take us home, Wade!
WADE MAJOR: That really does sum it up — and I think that’s a great observation that because Krasinski is not a horror filmmaker, the films work better than if, say, they’d been made by someone with serious horror roots like a Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson or Guillermo del Toro. Even though all three of those guys are considered “elite” tentpole filmmakers, I think they would have stylistically overplayed their hands — too much CGI, too many set pieces, too much FILMMAKING. Krasinski’s an actor, and he anchors these things in character and family — like that wonderful scene in the first film where the family is saying grace together. Who else would have done that? Beautiful touch. It says so much — it gives you so much insight into where their faith in each other comes from and why they ultimately succeed, and why they’re willing to sacrifice for each other. It does more than all the whiz-bang editing, cinematography, FX and sound mixing could ever do.
Now, to close this out… let me clarify… I don’t believe it was originally conceived as a trilogy. But I do believe that once the first film proved so successful that a sequel was greenlit, they immediately did the same thing they did with John Wick, which is they conceived the sequel not as merely a sequel, but as a precursor to a third chapter. Nobody ever knows if a film will spawn a sequel — but once there’s momentum for a second film — why not exploit it for a third? I have no doubt that’s what’s going on here because the way we are introduced to a little more of the monsters’ origin story, the more questions we have. I think that was intentional to set up a new narrative in the third film. We’re going to find out expressly how and why the monsters came here. And here’s why I think that’s smart — because we’ve pretty much exhausted the central gimmick of the premise. You can’t really go there a third time, nor do I think audiences want to. I think we want answers now — and they’ve set themselves up perfectly with a third film to answer those questions while giving us a very different kind of movie that goes where the first two did not.
Maybe they’ll prove me wrong and go to the same well again — maybe they’ll get greedy and think they can beat this thing to death with four, five, six films. But I don’t think Krasinski and Blunt are that craven. They have other things they want to do — and one more film will seal the deal and let them sign off and move on to bigger and better things.
Here’s hoping I’m right.
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