Friday, June 25, 2021

A Quiet Place Part II

A Quiet Place Part II (2020)

91% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 309 reviews)

Runtime: 97 minutes

Directed by: John Krasinski

Starring: Everyone in the family plus a new character played by Cillian Murphy

From: Paramount

As I mentioned in my review for A Quiet Place that was posted yesterday, I saw both movies theatrically for the first time yesterday. While I enjoyed that, I do think this was a little better. It was appropriate to see them back to back as Part II-after an intro that shows Day 1 of the invasion-picks up right after Part I concludes.

As this is new, much of the plot won't be revealed; instead it will be noted that from the trailers witnessed by my eyes, they did not reveal as much as they appeared to. Part II is a different beast from Part I in several ways: there are more monsters, more dialogue, more people, and more of the universe seen. This worked instead of flopping because the essence of the series is still the same and the lead characters all grow & mature from what was seen in the first movie.

John Krasinski has grown as a director since his debut; not only was he more assured and the overall product was less clunky, the very good sound design & score has returned and editing plays a big role in the final act... thank heavens Michael P. Shawver was up to the task. Two of the characters (one returning and one new) were the true highlights. Another relief was that this had more scares than the first.

The ending is on the abrupt side-I guess that's better than being relieved that the film is over, which has happened too often in modern movies. Personally, I am glad this movie is not a few things: something that shoehorns in humor that was not needed, avoids being needlessly long, and is not pretentious crap. Give me either of these motion pictures to most of the product of the “heightened horror” movement. Whenever Part III is released in the future, there will be no delay in my theatrical viewing of that. As I prefer Part II, expectations will be high for III.

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