The notion of what it means to be cinematic is baked into the terrific premise of the A Quiet Place movies. Built around blind monsters who have developed such an attuned sense of hearing they can track victims from even the slightest noise, John Krasinski’s films explore a world where dialogue has to be kept to a minimum, meaning the story can only move forward through image, sound and music. Thriving on this conceit, the first film delivered clever, lean scares, spinning ingenuity within a confined space. This time round, the focus is broadened with diminishing returns, but A Quiet Place Part II still manages to conjure up enough thrills to make it worthwhile.
It gets off to a rollicking start. Spiralling back to day one of the alien subjugation, Krasinski mounts a full-on assault on the senses as the noise-seeking creatures attack the heartland of America (a baseball field, Main Street),all heralded by that trusty signifier of post- apocalyptic doom, a barking dog. It’s a bravura beginning, Krasinski and sound designers Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl getting fantastic mileage from the juxtaposition between silence and carnage.
Unlike last time, and even at a tight 97 minutes, there are longueurs.
Fast-forwarding to day 474, the action picks up just after the events of the first film (there are some not-so-subtle reminders of that nail and that bath). The Abbotts — mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt), deaf daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds, still the series’ MVP), son Marcus (Noah Jupe) and baby Abbott, who is carried around in a post-apocalypse-proofed carrycot — decide to leave home on a quest to find civilisation. Instead, and not before a moment that will make you truly wince, they find Emmett (Cillian Murphy in the trademarked survivalist uniform of cap and big beard), an old neighbour from the pre-invasion days whose run-ins with the creatures has unravelled his life and worldview.
At this point, Krasinski (who has a sole screenwriting credit this time) decides to split up the protagonists — with some characters on a mission that might just see off the creatures completely (surprisingly key to this endeavour is an easy-listening standard) and others left behind to hold Emmett’s very small fort — and it’s here that the film’s grip starts to lessen. Unlike last time and even at a tight 97 minutes, there are longueurs, and Krasinski fumbles moments of cross-cutting three lines of action, dissipating rather than generating tension. Also, some of the screenplay’s conceptions of how society has disintegrated don’t really track.
Still, there are powerful moments (Regan trying to tell Emmett how to enunciate), callbacks to the first film that feel earned (a visit to the grave of lost son Beau) and the skirmishes with the creatures which are always fun — daylight puts the monsters under greater scrutiny; ILM rise to it. Krasinski’s filmmaking mostly has a slick, well-tooled confidence that should land him a superhero gig soon, but it might be wise to let the Abbotts off the hook for now.
