A Quiet Place Part II: A Commendably Solid Sequel

I distinctly remember seeing A Quiet Place Part II in theaters with some friends upon its initial release, and I think it's strange that it doesn't get talked about much anymore. The discourse surrounding it has dropped to nearly net zero in the years following its release, an unfortunate trend because A Quiet Place Part II, while unable to attain the heights of the first movie, is an excellent sequel in its own right and an impressive feat of worldbuilding and intelligently minimalistic horror, one that wants to show us more of the silent world that first captivated audiences back in 2018. It picks up pretty much exactly where the first movie ended, and follows the remaining members of the Abbott family as they set out to search for other survivors, a simple-enough premise that it executes more than competently.

The cinematography of this movie is impressive, far better than I recalled from my last time watching it, and a massive step up from the first outing. The color grading, especially when using the color red, is eye-popping. Everyone who scouted potential filming locations or built the sets for this movie deserves a raise, because A Quiet Place Part II makes the necessary decision to expand the first film's world, which is one thing a proper sequel should do. From an abandoned steel foundry to a cult-bandit infested boat dock of death to a jarringly peaceful and untouched settlement on an island, its world is never dull. It's a good and a bad thing simultaneously that we get to see much more of the impressively-realized and monster-ravaged world here, because while explorative purposes are pretty self-explanatory, this movie loses a level of the intimacy of its predecessor.

What A Quiet Place Part II gains in eye-catching variety, it loses in economy. I knew this movie's scale would be larger than that of the first, so while it takes this assumed opportunity to show us more of its intriguingly grounded world, we also lose a lot of the minimalism that made the first movie so refreshing in the name of world-building. Still, the blueprint of this movie is perfectly legible. Regan, the Abbott daughter, plans to find a radio station broadcasting a song on repeat and repurpose it as a weapon against the monsters. This genius idea makes a lot of sense while also giving the movie a direction to go, a goal to be accomplished.

The glimpses of the wider world are prevalent enough to matter and yet brief enough to keep us intrigued. Regan and Emmett stumble upon a number of different groups of survivors. Some are benevolent, and others are far from it. Some have drawn comparisons between this movie and The Walking Dead, a sentiment I would second. This movie may have been even better off being a limited miniseries, but for what we got, I was more than satisfied and would jump at the opportunity to see more of this world in a sequel that is reportedly in the works as we speak.

A Quiet Place Part II is a sequel I wish more people would talk about. It gets dealt the unenviable hand of having to expand the world of a franchise founded on minimalism, and while it doesn't entirely outrun a level of awkwardness, its largely-successful attempts to be bigger than its predecessor while also maintaining the intimacy that made the first film so special are commendable, and the post-apocalyptic world of this movie, while not entirely unfamiliar, is intriguing, mainly because we got to see so little of it in the first movie. This is a sequel that, like the film that came before it, can touch on the fundamentals of being human while also getting loud people in movie theaters to actually shut up. And to that I say, what's not to like?

A Quiet Place Part II - 8/10

Proverbs 3:27-28