A Quiet Place Part 2, A Disquieting Sequel

A Quiet Place Part 2

 

Rating:  ** ½

A Quiet Place Part 2 Movie Review: The long-awaited sequel to A Quiet Place  , one of the most  elegant horror films(if we can call it horror at all) is  a praiseworthy follow-up, though  nothing as  stunningly befitting as Godfather Part  2, as far as  sequels  go.

Nonetheless PA Quiet Place Part 2 of the  Quiet saga is  quite  an achievement.  It  makes you care for the  characters  in a way that  the pandemic has taught the world to care  about  human beings in distress. When the  first  part  of  the film had come in 2018 there was  no Covid. Therefore the alien monster seemed  just a distance threat converted  into a throbbing bleating reality by Kranski’s  apt and  controlled  direction.

One of my key joy-factors in Part 1  was that we  rarely saw  the alien creatures.  We just felt the  characters’ sweaty terror and anxiety.  In  A Quiet Place Part 2 the  ugly aliens play a far more physical  part, turning the  plot  about the fear of the  unknown ,into something far more threatening and gimmicky .

Luckily  the  on-screen antics  of  the  aliens monsters do not  diminish  the  sheer  anxiety level as mom Emily Blunt her deaf daughter  Millcent  Simmons and her son Noah Jupe(talented  child  from Wonder  here prone to overact specially when  compared to his screen mom and sis) lunge for safety time after time.

The  suspense  in  the A Quiet Place Part 2 is  relentless. I wish  the Abott family had been left to their own devices. But  Hollywood remains as patriarchal in its  attitude as  its Indian counterpart. Since the family’s father played  by director Kranski was  more there to “protect” his family, a  new man, the saviour protector is introduced as  a pivotal  character.

This man is played  by an interesting musician  turned actor Cillian Murphy and he brings  a certain amount of  dignified machismo to the monster brawl.

But I am  afraid the screenplay runs out of steam midway. I could see  Kranski struggling to induce new energy  into the  plot every ten  minutes. Somewhere down the  plot   a bunch of  zombie-like ghouls suddenly  appear at the seaside , eliciting  some wharf-the-fuck reactions from those  of us who dislike the  idea of  a  plot digressing too far from home.

But it is  not  all  a loss for the sequel. It burns bright when  it  stays  close to  the now-fatherless Abott family .They  must learn  to survive. The world has changed for the worse since we last met them.