Rent A Quiet Place: Part II (2020)

Big disappointment - A Quiet Place: Part II review by TE

The first film in this franchise (Part 2 ends with plenty of scope for further sequels) had originality and some genuinely different twists on the almost redundant horror movie genre. There was even room for some character development and audience investment in the family's survival.

This second instalment is much more of a routine affair, with some clunking leaps of credibility that make it just another schlock horror piece.

It's nice to see Cillian Murphy getting a good payday just for rolling his eyes a lot and looking like a hillbilly, but such pleasures have their limits. Emily Blunt seems robotic compared to her committed performance in the first movie.

'A Quiet Place 2' sums up the Hollywood ethos: rather than develop something fresh, push an idea beyond its limits and turn it stale.

Better-than-average sequel - A Quiet Place: Part II review by Alphaville

On the minus side, this sequel is a bit of a retread that lacks novelty and surprise, with lots of creeping around waiting for a creature to pounce. Eventually the film just stops, presumably to set up a possible third film in some deteriorating franchise. On the plus side it’s as well acted and directed as the original and has some tense and exciting creature scenes. Like most sequels, it’s not as good as the original, but it’s intelligent, well made, better than your average creature feature and remains very watchable from beginning to end.

Up to Standard - A Quiet Place: Part II review by AW

As good as the first film. Same style and atmosphere with a new character. Saw more of the creatures which is really what we want. Great acting throughout and the storyline believable. Left us with the possibility of a final episode. There should be one, but only one as there would definitely be a reduction in quality.

A thrilling and worthy companion piece to the first film - A Quiet Place: Part II review by BG

A Quiet Place was a taut, contained thriller with such an effective premise that expanding it into the wider world was always going to be a risk. Happily 'Part 2' works pretty well, and largely that's down to the performances of a committed cast. Back for a brief 'Day one of the attack' cameo is series director and erstwhile star John Krasinski, and these scenes really showcase how these films differ from the average Hollywood monster movie, as I found myself getting so effectively sucked into the character performances by returning cast members Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe and new addition Cillian Murphy that I forgot to care about when the 'alien stuff' would start. But start it does, with some very effective and impressive sky-based special effects. Minutes later, a terrifying onslaught is unleashed and we understand how the world went to hell so quickly...

The plot then has the sense to cut to a point shortly after the end of the first movie, neatly bookending the film and then moving forward with its own energy. The tension is brilliantly conveyed as Blunt and her children have to escort the terrifying cargo of a newborn baby out into the wild in search of other survivors, encountering fresh and dramatic challenges as they go.

That's all I'll cover on the plot, as it works best when approached with little information.

Blunt is very good as the mother trying to help her family survive against impossible odds, but has far less character development to do in this film than in the first. Murphy is fascinatingly mercurial and hard to pin down as the survivor who may or may not be reliable. Jupe is terrific as a boy who isn't naturally brave, but keeps having to step up and somehow find a way to manage. But Simmonds is the golden ingredient as the deaf daughter whose resilience and bravery might just be the glue that helps to keep them all alive, facing each new situation with a courage that seems at first to be foolhardy, but invariably turns out to be sheer toughness and brilliance. The film milks many of its most anxiety-inducing moments from her attempts to propel their chances of survival forwards, and Krasinski remains a director to follow eagerly for his deft hand with tension just as much as Simmonds remains an actress who keeps growing to fill any opportunity to demonstrate her versatility.

The tension sequences remain knife-edge and squirm-inducing (you'll likely find yourself grimacing at injuries and harshly whispering "SHHHH!" at the screen whenever characters make a noise) and although the rules of silence at any cost seem to slip a little here and there, they remain just consistent enough to fill the movie with a dread of noise.

The creatures are seen a fair amount and remain very frightening, but unfortunately some slightly patchy VFX renders them a little less than convincing in one or two scenes, and there's a heinous error with an obviously CGI pool of blood at one stage. They've also lost a little of their fear-factor from over-exposure, and don't really show any new tricks apart from one interesting revelation about their capabilities.

The usually very good writing isn't always quite up to the standard of the direction (we get 'stupid decision syndrome' at least twice in order to propel the plot), but we do also get some absolute gems of moments - especially when Simmonds admonishes Murphy's character to 'Enunciate' because she can't read his lips. We also get some tropes in the plotting, as one particular finale element has been used in a great many survival thrillers.

However, movies with the invention to hand the control of the plot to a deaf teenage girl are few and far between, and it enriches the experience considerably, as does Simmonds' committed performance. The film suggests there might be potential for another sequel. Whether the franchise needs 'A Quiet Place 3: Even Quieter' or similar is up for debate, but as sequels go, this one is a success.