A Quiet Place Part II is a 2021 American scifi horror film, and the sequel to 2018’s A Quiet Place, following the family from the first film as they continue to navigate and survive in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by blind aliens with an acute sense of hearing. If you have read our review of the original movie, you would be aware that we found the premise to be critically flawed. Obviously that flawed premise has not changed but there are even more problems with the story of A Quiet Place Part II, as our analysis reveals.
S P O I L E R S
The plot of A Quiet Place Part II picks up from where the original left off – basically protagonist Lee Abbot (John Krazinski) is dead, having sacrificing himself for his family viz. wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt), deaf teen daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), adolescent son Marcus (Noah Jupe), and a newborn son. Now his family has to find a way to survive in this post-apocalyptic landscape.
The family encounters Emmett (Cillian Murphy) introduced as Lee’s friend in the opening flashback detailing the first day of the alien invasion and the storyline effectively splits into two.
The first one finds Regan with the quest of finding an island with a radio tower to broadcast her hearing aid’s high-frequency noise to other survivors who can weaponize the signal against the creatures. When Regan runs off without informing her mother, Emmett follows after her at Evelyn’s behest. Now, in the previous film, this deus ex machina was hard enough to swallow, now it’s plot device that drives the entire film. Poor.
The second storyline is even less exciting as Evelyn has to find a way to protect her two sons from an alien creature as Emmett’s hideaway is discovered in somewhat dubious fashion.
After watching both of these movies, it’s plain that the popularity of this horror franchise hinges purely on that novelty of characters having to keep very quiet, thus facilitating jump scares galore. But once you put that aside, as mentioned before, the plot and characters fall flat and the story is hollow.
Despite these flaws, A Quiet Place franchise continues to flourish with a spin-off and second sequel in the works already. If you are satisfied with cheap thrills then A Quiet Place Part II is the movie for you.
… still there’s more …