Spoilers will try to keep it down again.

This is a film that finally hit theatres this year, but technically it did premiere in New York City back in March 2020. From what we know from A Quiet Place (2018), the premise remains a similar one. You have to be dead silent. This also transfers to the audience, which means you always run the risk of one inconsiderate audience member trying to ruin the experience. Your luck may vary, but the premise still holds up which means that usually you’ll get an empathic audience willing to share the experience… Or you can wait until it shows up in online streaming services.

(Credit: Paramount Pictures)

A Quiet Place II (2020) was directed by John Krasinski who wrote the screenplay based on the characters created by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods for the previous film. It stars giving us a flashback opening of our main characters on the day the alien invasion began. We’ve already seen the aliens, so this time the movie has no qualms about keeping them hidden. You actually see them in open daylight now. The sequel does rely a lot more on jump scares, but for the most part they are not cheap. The drama is amped several notches as we rejoin Evelyn (Emily Blunt) back in the present just after the first film’s plot ends. With her, is now her newborn as well as Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe), being the survivors of the first film.

Reeling from the loss of their home and their husband & father Lee (John Krasinski), the family has to scamper off into new territory. They end up running into Emmett (Cillian Murphy), who we meet in the flashback as a friend of the family but who has lost his own and has isolated himself from the world and wants nothing to do with anybody. Emmett wants them gone from his own hiding spot, but Regan has other plans – and a theory of a possible safe haven. Perhaps it’s the cynic in me or I’ve just watched too many post-apocalyptic films, but I wasn’t keen on Regan’s idea. Much less when she tends to run off on her own forcing people to go after her. As for poor Marcus, he’s definitely worse for luck early in this film.

It’s still pretty much based on the same premise, but comparisons to the first film are unavoidable. The characters are still engaging, although it does add to your investment if you’ve seen the first movie. It’s definitely a part two, where we know now what we’re against. The ending is rather mixed and slightly jarring, where parties end up in different places at once. We don’t see anything new in this film that we didn’t before. It’s not bad, but basically it just expands the first film a little further and the ending leaves some open ends.

Recommended with minor reservations. This is basically an extension of the first film, it’s thrilling and it will grab you but it doesn’t really add anything new to the story. It retains most of the quality, without the novelty, of the first film and it still brings the chills. However, despite bringing in new characters, it doesn’t feel like it expands its lore or reveals anything new about the world they inhabit. The ending also leaves some things unresolved and characters scattered, lacking a fully satisfying closure. Worth a watch if you saw the first film.

That will do for now.