A QUIET PLACE : PART II - Tuesday 1st June 2021.

'A QUIET PLACE : PART II' which I saw this week is an M Rated eagerly anticipated long awaited American horror follow-up to 2018's 'A Quiet Place' which grossed US$341M off the back of a US$20M production budget, and was Co-Written, Directed and starred John Krasinski. For this sequel John Krasinski returns to the Directors chair and he also wrote, Co-Produced and once again has a small role in this film, even though his character was killed off in the first film. This film saw its World Premier screening in New York City back on 8th March 2020, with a worldwide release set from 20th March 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was rescheduled to 4th September 2020. It was then changed to 23rd April 2021 and then changed again to 17th September 2021. After three postponements, it was moved earlier in the year to last week. This film was made for US$61M, has so far grossed US$90M and has generated largely positive Critical acclaim. Apparently, in May of this year Emily Blunt revealed that her husband John Krasinski has an idea for a third instalment. 

The film kicks off on Day One of the alien attack, over a year before the events of the first film. The Abbott family are attending their son Marcus' (Noah Jupe) baseball game. Lee Abbott (John Krasinski) has just returned from a general store where he has picked up a supply of fresh oranges for the mid-game break. He sits with his daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and his wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) talking with another Dad, Emmett (Cillian Murphy) about how the game is unfolding. Mid-game the players and the spectators notice a burning object in the skies above their town hurtling towards the Earth. 

Panic ensues and most attempt to get outta there quickly by retreating to their cars and driving off. Lee drives off with Regan and Evelyn drives off with her two sons, agreeing to meet back at their farm house. Needless to say it doesn't end well for the townsfolk when many are systematically attacked indiscriminately by rampaging blind aliens with hypersensitive hearing and seemingly impenetrable armour like skin. The Abbott's are able to get out alive, but only just having been chased down by one such alien, who dispenses with the local Police Officer instead. 

We then fast forward to day 474 since the aliens arrived on Earth and wiped out much of the population, including Lee who sacrificed himself at the end of the first film while attempting to save Regan and Marcus from an approaching alien creature. Regan had discovered that the aliens are vulnerable to high-frequency audio feedback, and devised a means of transmitting her cochlear implant hearing aid's noise through a microphone and radio, so allowing Evelyn to shoot the creatures dead while in their vulnerable state. And so with Lee dead, we pick up where the last film left off. The Abbott family, together with their newborn son leave the farm for good, with the barn burning and only what they can carry between them. Evelyn is carrying an oxygen cylinder for the newborn baby and Regan has retrieved a portable guitar amplifier and microphone with which to fend off any alien attack. They head off down the sand path in search for what might remain of human communities at which they can reestablish themselves.

The Abbott's come to what looks like an abandoned train yard and enter a fenced-off area. Evelyn treads on a trip wire causing a bunch of cans and bottles tied to a rope to come crashing down. She orders Regan and Marcus to 'run' as an alien is alerted by the jangling noise. Marcus runs over a bear trap and his foot is caught. He screams out in agony which only further serves to attract an alien. Evelyn is able to shoot it dead as it approaches and then she frees her son who can now barely walk. 

The family runs into an abandoned steel foundry just as another alien approaches. Inside, with the alien giving chase, they run into Emmett, who hurriedly takes them to his bunker under the foundry, and they all hide in a giant cauldron until the coast is clear. Later that evening when Marcus has had his injuries attended to, he and Regan hear a radio signal broadcasting the song 'Beyond the Sea' on a loop. Regan comes to the conclusion that it is a clue meant to lead survivors to a radio tower on a nearby island. 

She decides to venture out alone, much to Marcus' chagrin, to go there in secret and transmit the high-frequency noise her hearing aid produces, allowing anyone picking up the signal to use it to thwart the aliens. After realising that Regan has left, Evelyn begs Emmett to go find her and bring her back. He eventually catches up with Regan inside the wreckage of an old train carriage and saves her from an alien.  He tells her they will be returning at once. However, after explaining her plan to him and appealing to his sense of duty he reluctantly agrees to help complete her mission. Back at Emmett's bunker, Evelyn leaves Marcus and her baby for just a couple of hours to go in search of much needed needed medical supplies, including oxygen for the baby, and bandages and medication to treat Marcus' injured foot and ankle. While she is gone, Marcus decides to explore the foundry by torchlight. He is startled when he comes across the corpse of Emmett's deceased wife, sending him reeling backwards in shock and knocking over several objects on a nearby table. This alerts a nearby alien to his location. He runs quickly back to the bunker, bundles up the baby, grabs the oxygen cylinder and then inadvertently locks himself and the baby inside the cauldron.

Meanwhile, Emmett tells Regan that he has located a boat to get them across to the island. Under cover of darkness the pair search a marina for a suitable vessel, when they are attacked by a group of feral humans who attempt to take Regan with them, while binding Emmett with fishing net to which is tied cans and bells. While the ferals are walking down the jetty with Regan, Emmett motions to her to dive into the water, leaving him to deliberately attract two aliens that set about slaughtering the ferals. One alien falls into the water and flails about while another becomes trapped on a boat. By now Emmett is in the water himself watching the carnage unfold before him. He realises the aliens cannot swim. 

Regan secures a boat and the two escape. Regan and Emmett arrive at the island and find a colony of human survivors living a near normal existence. The community's leader (Djimon Hounsou) explains that when the government discovered the aliens were unable to swim, the National Guard moved as many people as possible to the islands, but when people began to selfishly fight to get aboard, the aliens attacked and destroyed all but two of the twelve boats scheduled to leave. 

In the bunker, Marcus and the baby begin to run out of oxygen in the cylinder and the cauldron is airtight. Marcus loses consciousness. Almost at the point of suffocation Evelyn returns carrying her much needed medical supplies and two full oxygen cylinders. Hearing the cacophony Evelyn distracts the alien by firing a bullet at one of the cylinders which explodes in a ball of flame enveloping the alien. But, the alien comes out the other side almost unscathed, so she disorients it by setting off the overhead sprinkler system and then saves Marcus and her young son by clambering into the cauldron but being mindful not to lock them inside. The three share the oxygen tank to survive while the alien waits outside.

The next day, Emmett discovers an alien has drifted to the island on a boat, carried along by the tide. Just as Emmett races to alert the island folk it emerges and starts slaughtering everyone in its path. Emmett, Regan, and the leader lure the alien to the radio station, but upon entering the leader is grabbed from behind and killed by the alien which then follows Regan and Emmett inside. Emmett sustains an injury to his leg by being clawed by the alien when he attempts to distract it, but Regan is able to play the high-pitched sound from her implant through the radio station's internal speakers so weakening the alien. She then walks towards the alien and brings down a heavy pole through its head, killing it outright. At the same time in the bunker, Marcus picks up the signal and routes it through his portable radio, weakening the alien waiting outside. He approaches holding the radio aloft and shoots it with Evelyn's revolver, killing it. Regan leaves her hearing aid on the radio station microphone, allowing anyone picking up the correct frequency to use the noise to fight them darn pesky no good aliens.

'A Quiet Place : Part II' is a great sequel to a great movie, and in this second instalment Director and Writer John Krasinski has crafted a scary, emotional, tense, taut, lean monster feature that ups the action, the suspense and the feeling of dread in a truly immersive piece of film making that proves he is no one trick pony. Emily Blunt's Evelyn here takes a back seat to the action (albeit remaining as equally grounded and more in protective maternal mode) that is more centered upon Millicent Simmonds Regan and newcomer Cillian Murphy's Emmett as the pair venture out to find salvation from the marauding alien monsters. Noah Jupe's Marcus also puts in a convincing turn as both son and daughter ultimately lay to waste an alien foe so saving themselves and a pair of incapacitated adults in the process. The production values are top notch, and both the Editor and Cinematographer deserve a special mention for the part they play in crafting three varying story lines into a coherent whole. My only gripe would be that the origin and what motivates the alien creatures to randomly kill every human in sight is not touched upon - at all, and as such it feels that Krasinski has all too little to say about them anyway, or that they are poorly conceived, or that for the audience he would rather let the slicing and dicing of their human prey do the talking. That said, 'A Quiet Place : Part II' is certainly well worth the price of your cinema ticket, and if these first two films in the series is anything to go by, then bring on 'A Quiet Place : Part III'.

'A Quiet Place : Part II' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-