A QUIET PLACE PART II: Aural Sects

Director: John Krasinski
Writer: John Krasinski
Cast: Millicent Simmons, Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Noah Jupe, Djimon Hounsou
Runtime: 97 mins.
2021

The out of nowhere barn-burning success of A Quiet Place was the moment that people began to see director and lead John Krasinski as something more than 'that guy from The Office.' Krasinski has since used that recognition to position himself as a bastion of conservative values in Hollywood while staunchly denying that he is doing so. The actor campaigned for Elizabeth Warren in 2012 (herself a former Republican), but his recent roles are either heroic men at the locus of the American military-industrial complex, or A Quiet Place, which many took to be a paean for 'traditional family values.'*

*It's worth mentioning that the indistinguishability between conservative and liberal values in Krasinski's career may have less to do with him being good at hiding his politics and more to do with the frequent indistinguishability of conservative and liberal values. (pro-military, pro-police, pro-heroic individualism)

This not-so-subtly features into the opening scene of A Quiet Place Part II, which exists only to feature Krasinski despite his character's death in the previous film. Krasinski's Lee is always the first to be suspicious and the first to take action-- and he is absolutely justified in his paranoia-- a model for the 'governments and aliens are coming to take my guns' crowd. The tone-setting scene also makes a big goddamn deal of highlighting his positive relationship with a local Black cop, who pointedly gets the Big Hero Moment of the prologue.

The scene is electric with tension, and probably the best filmed sequence of the movie, despite adding nothing of import to the story beyond a chance to see Our Hero Lee again. In effect the whole movie takes its shape from Lee's absence. The major new character is Cillian Murphy's Emmett, who is positioned as a father figure to Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and a husband surrogate to Evelyn (Emily Blunt) not because they share any chemistry, but because he is an Adult Man. Indeed, Emmett is compelled to regularly express his impotence in comparison to the late Lee, something that everybody seems to agree upon.

It is Emmett who shares a journey and an arc with Regan, despite being strangers to each other. I wonder why this plot position wasn't filled by Evelyn, who has more of a vested interest in her daughter's fate and ambitions. Instead Emily Blunt is entirely sidelined. She spends most of the film picking up supplies for the baby and visiting her late husband's grave, where she leaves her ring behind in a symbolic gesture that can be cynically read as 'a new patriarch showed up.' The script doesn't even allow her to speak for herself. When she must convince Emmitt to pursue Regan and save her life, she does not speak from her heart. She laments that if only Lee were here, he would have told Emmett all about how his daughter is the most special girl in the world and well worth saving. Do you not also think your daughter is special? Or does the manipulation only carry weight coming from a dead good man?

To editorialize a bit: How nice it must be to direct a movie all about how amazing you are and how everyone misses you and wants to be you.

Anyhow, about the goings on of the movie itself. It's a classical sequel, the kind you don't see too much anymore. Everything is the same as the first film but slightly bigger in scope. More monsters, more victims, higher stakes... even the climax is resolved by the same sonic phenomenon, just broadcasted over the radio this time. All of this retread territory is buoyed by much more footage of the monsters themselves. This CGI showcase is certainly thanks to a massive budget hike. All the long and close shots of these things lumbering around does no favors to the suspense, but the monster designs are compelling enough to be enjoyable to look at for a while.

Its simplicity is both a virtue and a weakness. Krasinski well understands that the film is not much more than tense setpieces connected by string, and he keeps the proceedings hustling along efficiently. Yet some of the less imaginative sequences are terribly uninteresting, like the interference of a gang of ~evil survivors~ who Emmett builds up to be creatures of depravity but whose most depraved tactic is attaching a bunch of cans to someone.

This formulaic variation on the original is solidly made, with a simple script held down by modest performances. Once again the sound design is its standout feature, generating buckets of tension with well-paced minimalism. A Quiet Place Part II continues to lean on a delicious premise that blessedly allows its screenwriter to avoid penning more dialogue than he has to.

2.5 / 5  BLOBS