This entire franchise has been out of my vision reach. The first movie was released in April 2018, and I was already having eye surgery by that point. I remember being interested in this concept, but I’ve experienced the entire thing with comments from friends or audio description shaping the experience. I remember after the first movie came out, I was in a conversation with a friend who said they looked like vaginas. Of course, I only have the audio description to compare it with, or other opinions, but you can imagine what my mind is thinking every time I sit through one of these. thanks, friend.
But, whaat is so interesting about the Quiet Place franchise has been the lack of dialog allows for a richer audio description track than we typically get. That means usually we get more of the aliens, more of the kills, more gore, more set and scenery, and by the end, a much more well rounded product. The audio description writers have less to worry about with the trampling of dialogue, and can really dive in on the expressiveness of an actor’s facial expressions. Thank God, because Lupita Nyong’o is expressive as hell.
This prequel takes the winning idea of the second film, about whaat that first day was like, and drops the aliens in an incredibly populated metropolis. Nyong’o is our lead, who just wants to get a great slice of New York City pizza before she expires. She’s already terminally ill, and she and her service cat are the leads of the film. What an interesting ask of the audience to get invested in the survival of an individual who doesn’t have long to live anyway. As we watch others die around her, she seems to be able to keep her cool, and stay quiet. Shockingly, so does her cat, which is the most quiet animal ever on this earth.
I love how this movie plays with sounds. We still see the hiding behind a waterfall effectiveness from the first film, but we also see her in position to try and crack open a can of cat food without being hacked to death by the horde. As soon as you hear that lid click, you remember that a few scenes back, someone met their end because their shirt tore just a little bit. Really, it is all about proximity as much as it is decibel level.
As solid as this is, I can’t help but shake the fact that the emotional anchor was the first film. Neither the sequel or prequel was able to top that for me,though I enjoyed both. Here, I’m not really attached to the characters, although I could have been if they had been introduced at the beginning before the aliens start wiping people out. However, the movie banks entirely on Nyong’o. She’s worth banking on, so I get it.
If I had a little complaint about the track, it would be size relativity. Without spoiling, there’s a scene where a character is navigating a field of space mushrooms, which is seemingly guarded by a larger version of the aliens. However, how much bigger is that alien? Size relativity would give us a real world basis to ground us in determining how large this specific type of alien is.
I’d still recommend the film. It is a little unfair to say it is technically my least favorite of the three, when I think all three are worthy entries, just each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Final Grade: B
