A QUIET PLACE PART II (2020)

Studio:     Paramount/Platinum Dunes
Director:    John Krasinski
Writer:     John Krasinski
Producer:  Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, John Krasinski
Stars:     Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Djimon Hounsou, John Krasinski

Review Score:

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Summary:

The Abbott Family’s struggle to survive against creatures attracted to sound takes new turns after they’re forced to flee their farmhouse.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Day 1 – With their deaf daughter Regan and young son Beau, Lee and Evelyn Abbott attend a Little League baseball game for their other son Marcus. Fellow father Emmett also attends with his children.

Confusion ensues when the crowd sees a strange fireball in the sky. Concern erupts into mass panic when creatures attracted to sound suddenly attack everyone in town.

Day 474 – Following Lee’s death and the destruction of their farm, Evelyn ventures out with Regan, Marcus, and her newborn baby toward a signal fire Regan saw in the distance. The family arrives at an abandoned factory, but Marcus triggers an animal trap that painfully punctures his ankle. Marcus’ screams attract a creature. Regan uses hearing aid feedback through a portable amplifier and Evelyn uses her shotgun for defense. Emmett, who has used the factory as a hideout since losing his family, unexpectedly escorts everyone to safety in a soundproof copper drum.

Emmett tells the family they cannot stay because there are not enough supplies for everyone. Emmett reconsiders when Evelyn shows him she has a newborn. Emmett also admits that he saw the signal fire Lee used to burn nightly, but he chose not to help them because he was only concerned about his own survival.

A radio suddenly plays “Beyond the Sea.” Emmett explains that the song has played at regular intervals for four months, although he still insists there is nothing left of civilization. Emmett’s defeated lack of empathy causes Regan to chastise him for being nothing like her heroic father.

Regan privately tells Marcus she believes the song is a clue directing them to an island sanctuary. Regan proposes finding a boat that can take them toward the broadcast signal. Marcus points out that their mother would never allow them to pursue such a dangerous plan, so Regan sneaks out alone. When she discovers Regan missing, Evelyn begs Emmett to find her.

Regan takes shelter in a train graveyard. Emmett arrives in time to rescue Regan from a creature attack. Emmett explains he came to take Regan back, but Regan insists they can push past the creatures using amplified hearing aid feedback. Emmett discourages Regan’s plan, but Regan changes his mind by convincing him that the factory is not a real home.

Evelyn leaves Marcus alone with the baby while she hikes to a pharmacy to retrieve pain medication as well as fresh oxygen tanks for the baby’s soundproof carrier. Meanwhile, Marcus becomes trapped in the copper drum during a creature attack.

Emmett and Regan find a small boat in a marina. However, the docks turn out to be a trap and they are captured by a group of dangerous survivalists. Emmett and Regan resist, and attract the attention of creatures that attack the mob. Emmett and Regan survive by jumping into the water. Emmett subsequently realizes that the monsters cannot swim.

Evelyn returns to the factory. Evelyn tries to draw the creature away from her son and kill it, but she ultimately ends up cornered inside the drum with Marcus and the baby.

Emmett and Regan take the boat to an island where they are welcomed by a small commune living peacefully since the monsters cannot travel across water. Emmett explains how Regan’s hearing aid works to a man who agrees to help them broadcast feedback from the radio tower that sent “Beyond the Sea” as a beacon to other survivors.

Admitting she was right about him being nothing like her father, Emmett apologizes for doubting Regan. Emmett and Regan reconcile their earlier animosity.

Emmett frantically alerts the islanders when he notices a drifting boat carried a creature to shore. The monster causes chaos by violently killing multiple commune members.

Emmett and Regan escape with the man in a car. The man takes them to the radio station, but a pursuing creature kills him upon arrival. The monster corners Emmett and Regan after they make their way to the broadcast booth. Regan plays “Beyond the Sea” to draw the creature away from Emmett and toward her. She then uses her hearing aid to overload the speaker with feedback. The monster recoils. Regan kills the creature by thrusting a metal pole into its head.

At the same time, Marcus hears Regan’s feedback broadcast over his radio. Marcus uses the radio to repel the factory creature away from his mother and the baby. The monster drops dead.

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Review:

Especially when one considers how to-the-point the two-film franchise’s limited mythology is, “A Quiet Place Part II” is probably about as strategically conceived and efficiently executed as mainstream sequels can get. Even when the movie follows expected conventions, it does so creatively, and always with an eye for maximum cinematic suspense.

“A Quiet Place Part II” starts with a big bang that echoes how the first film expertly exploited sight and sound, or the lack of the latter, to become a nerve-wracking nail-biter. A fast flashback shows Lee Abbott (John Krasinski) joining the rest of his family for a Little League baseball game, but not before the camera devilishly lingers on a store shelf’s space shuttle toy to squeeze out a mournful memory for Part 1’s heart-ripping prologue. Not long after, fire appears in the sky, causing a commotion that erupts into full-blown pandemonium when creatures suddenly start flipping cars while tearing apart townspeople like tissue.

We don’t get a beefy origin story for the movie’s monsters. Why should we? What’s important for the film’s eerie entertainment value is their effect, not their cause. Boom. They’re here. And now they’re causing chaos amidst the splendid spectacle of explosions, crashing vehicles, and plenty of panicking people plowing into each other, as well as into the mouth of mayhem.

“A Quiet Place Part II” puts up this immediate reminder that its premise inherently lends itself to perfect pop scares with substantial panache. These aren’t cheap spells of silence punctuated by loud music cues, even though it might look that way out of context. Other movies employ clichés like hiding with a hand over someone’s mouth or tiptoeing down a dark corridor, then they use a volume knob to make the audience react. Both “A Quiet Place” movies use similar sequencing, except their scares are woven directly into the fabric of how the film’s fiction functions. The rules governing these sound-driven creatures require ratcheting tension with silence that doesn’t get released until a meaningful moment bursts from the building pressure. Many horror films can only accomplish this effect with false jolts or quick cuts. “A Quiet Place” merely sows the seeds scattered by its brilliantly minimal setup.

“A Quiet Place” (review here) left off at the end of the alien takeover’s 473rd day. “A Quiet Place 2” immediately picks up on Day 474. Ever since the original “Halloween II” (review here), I’ve always loved sequels that start as soon as their predecessors end. As a continuity nerd, it’s just appealing to imagine that these storylines never stop, only pause.

I also love that “A Quiet Place II” commits to “A Quiet Place’s” semi-unhappy conclusion by choosing not to take a comic book route in resurrecting Krasinski’s dead dad character. There’s no “oh, he actually survived like a serial killer in a slasher” rewriting at work here.

I say that, although “Part II” kind of cheats by transposing Krasinki’s role to Cillian Murphy as Emmett, a former family friend. Early scenes set on Day 474 establish Emmett as a man jaded by the deaths of his own loved ones. He survives on his own, caring nothing for others, even his neighbors the Abbotts, whose signal fires he ignored for multiple months. Initial hemming and hawing and one major misdirect seem to set up Emmett as a typical apocalypse a-hole who believes it’s “kill or be killed.” But he ultimately ends up filling the fatherly function as a surrogate for what Krasinski’s character probably would have been doing had he survived.

What I appreciate about how “A Quiet Place Part II” handles commonplace characters like these though, is that the film doesn’t let them overstay their welcome by overplaying the obvious. Excellent actors instead emote to overcome slight staleness in the scripting. At one point, Murphy and Millicent Simmonds encounter a cutthroat cabal of potentially murderous survivalists, but these villains only appear for a few minutes. By his own admission, writer/director John Krasinski isn’t “a genre guy” as he previously put it. Yet somehow he appears well aware that horror audiences have overdosed on countless Negans and “Dawn of the Dead” biker gangs, and don’t need to spend time with another. “Part II” throws the good guys into this threat, then rapidly resolves it so the movie can move on to another milieu in its constantly moving frying-pan-to-fire formula.

As part of that formula, Krasinski’s tactics for spreading out danger results in a roller coaster track with as many slow valleys as intense peaks. Several sequences can be reductively described as “so-and-so walks around for awhile.” Devil’s Advocate could rightfully argue that’s an unavoidable consequence of having so little dialogue since speaking can result in instantaneous death. “A Quiet Place” has to be activity-oriented, and not every activity can run at a breakneck speed, otherwise intermittent action wouldn’t be as exciting.

Although everyone essentially travels on connect-the-dots trails to achieve each parallel plotline’s respective goals, I’ll take the people inside the world of “A Quiet Place” over anyone in “The Walking Dead.” In this district of dystopian horror, these are comparatively conflicted characters with clearly defined purposes that sidestep most arroyos of drawn-out dreariness. I’m not sure how many more movies the simplicity of “A Quiet Place” can sustain since both entries thus far have gone down comparable paths with little deviation from their directness. That’s a problem for “A Quiet Place Part III” to solve. For the time being, “A Quiet Place Part II” knows exactly what’s needed to put together a quick little adventure into straight-shooting thrills.

Review Score: 75

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