A Quiet Place Part II or How to Make a Good Sequel
A Quiet Place Part II. Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
A Quiet Place Part II, the follow-up to John Krasinski’s smash shit A Quiet Place, is out now in theaters. And let me tell you, THIS is how you make a sequel. Originally I was skeptical about the film, because A Quiet Place was such a very self-contained and satisfying film that really benefited from this sense of suffocating claustrophobia. I didn’t think A Quiet Place was really crying out for a sequel that might try to explain the aliens’ backstory or expand its world. Being trapped on a farmhouse, unable to make a sound, was what made the original film so tense. If we see these characters go out into the world and mount a counterattack on the aliens, well, that just seemed like it would be unnecessary.
But Krasinski, who wrote and directed the sequel, is too smart for that. A Quiet Place Part II is not the story of Mankind’s triumphant clap-back against the alien invaders. Instead, much like the first film, A Quiet Place Part II is anchored by a small story of grief and survival, driven by deft character work and laced with tension from start to finish. The idea is really pretty simple but the execution is so very well done. Ultimately, that is why this simple idea has so much mileage.
Sure, the film relies on long periods of silent tension punctuated by loud noises. But it’s clever in the way it sets things up and the way it uses sound, the way it sometimes slips into the perspective of the deaf protagonist who can hear no noise at all and so may not notice the sinister figure slipping into the frame behind her. The addition of Cilian Murphy to the cast is a good one (the part requires the kind of subtle acting that is actually the most difficult to pull off) and of course Emily Blunt remains fantastic in her role as the determined but terrified mother just doing everything she can to keep it together.
OK, so why does A Quiet Place Part II work as a sequel? Because it expands the world of the first film, introducing new characters and exploring the reality of what life might be like in a world where most hope is gone and people are stalked in silence by a deadly menace. It doesn’t just do what most bad sequels do, which is replay the first film but with everything dialed up bigger and louder and dumber. I really hate watching sequels like that, because they just don’t put any thought at all into imagining new frontiers for the world they created.
And while A Quiet Place Part II of course has many scenes that recall those of the first film, it’s not just a rehash. It especially takes the time to focus on and develop the younger characters who were maybe a bit more in the background in the first film. It lets us get to know the post-invasion world a little bit better, but doesn’t bash us over the head with anything. And it ends on a very open-ended note setting up the option for a third film if there is an idea that’s right for it, but also closing out the plot and character arcs sufficiently that the film doesn’t insult your intelligence by being an obvious franchise place-setter.
A Quiet Place Part II was originally supposed to be released in 2020, but the pandemic derailed that. The studio clearly was willing to wait to try and give it a good chance at the box office, and it appears to be performing quite well all things considered. This may be the first signs of life in the film industry since everything went quiet in March 2020, and how appropriate that it should be A Quiet Place Part II to be the first film since the pandemic to make some real noise.
