A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE Review

A woman named Sam finds herself trapped in New York City during the early stages of an invasion by alien creatures with ultrasonic hearing

A Quiet Place (2018) & A Quiet Place Part II (2020) were such remarkable films. Director John Krasinski for sure displayed how talented he is both in front of the camera and behind it, knowing exactly what an audience member wants to see when they take a trip to the theater. They both were films that it definitely helped if you saw them with a group of people too. The level of suspense through cones of silence from audience participation, and the quality of the film itself, was firing on all cylinders to create the best experience one could have. Unfortunately, all of those qualities are nearly absent in this next chapter, A Quiet Place: Day One, the prequel to the first two films. It may be the absence of John Krasinki directing the film, as he’s just a writer this time around. Though now, independent filmmaker Michael Sarnoski (Pig) is at the helm, and honestly he just can’t cut the mustard. He didn’t deliver a bad film, but it doesn’t measure up to the previous two films by far across the board, and it is an overall disappointment with too many missed opportunities from memorable greatness.

For starters, this film was mis-marketed. We’re told this film was to take place during day one of the aliens first touching down on earth in New York City. During the opening of the film there was an intense scene or two showing this, but the footage was far too brief. After one character is injured through all of the chaos and mayhem, there’s a small time jump that skips over everything the trailers promised to deliver. Instead, we get a brief few moments of the aliens falling from the sky, landing, and killing humans; but most of the footage is covered up by dusk and smoke, so you’re barely able to see anything, and then that’s it. How do all of the people react to the invasion? Do the humans ever fight back? Do the humans try to rally together with a plan, then discover shortly after that it doesn’t work? How did society figure out that the aliens are afraid of water or can’t swim? How did the military react to the invasion? Did the army or marines fire off their AR-15 rifles and saw they did no damage to the aliens? Were flamethrowers, bombs, missiles, grenade launchers, or any other weapons used? How did the human beings find out and/or react to learning that the aliens only react to sound? None, absolutely none of these questions are answered, addressed, or explained; and it’s a huge letdown and a giant missed opportunity.

**Lupita Nyong’o as “Samira” in A Quiet Place: Day One from Paramount Pictures.**

The lead character in this film is Samira (Lupita Nyong’o), and she’s interesting enough with her dry sense of humor and view on life. It’s safe to say she wasn’t dealt the best hand when it comes to health and has a twisted way of dealing with it, especially with communicating with others. What is great about her character is it doesn’t take much to please her. Whether she’s with a group of people or alone, she’s determined to do what makes her feel happy and satisfied even if her life is on the line. She’s not reckless, but realizes life is short, and will stop at nothing to feel fulfilled even if it’s as simple as going across town to grab a slice of pizza. Her companion Eric (Joseph Quinn) was a funny man on screen too in his own way. While Samira can wander the earth alone for the rest of her days and be content, Eric is the exact opposite and needs that human interaction. Their journey together throughout the film is entertaining, but at the same time the film focuses on them too much with decent development from both. After a while it can get quite boring.

Reason being is in a sense this film is the same as the first two, but in a different location and just focusing on a small group of people. In part one and two the film focused on a small family in a rural area, which makes sense, because it’s the middle of nowhere. People aren’t supposed to be around, because it’s not the city. In this Day One prequel, with it being in New York, there’s people all over the place and endless amounts of technology that can make noise with death supposedly lurking around the corner everywhere. The film didn’t focus on this enough, but chose to follow only two characters for the majority of the film. This is another missed opportunity the film could’ve taken advantage of but didn’t. The best parts of the film was when they showed large crowds of people quietly trying to move through the city together like a herd of cattle, and if one person makes a mistake or a peep they’re all screwed. This was the most enjoyable, but again it was far too brief. At least half of this movie should’ve been literally day one, but it was more like ‘Quiet Place: Weeks One & Two,” which is a huge mistake.

**Joseph Quinn as “Eric” and Lupita Nyong’o as “Samira” in A Quiet Place: Day One from Paramount Pictures.**

For the most part characters were making smart decisions, but there were a few moments to where you’d want to scream at the screen for the characters not to move. Just sit there. The aliens can only see noise. You know this but still decide to run. It was frustrating to say the least, but those mishaps weren’t for the whole duration of the movie. It’s also detestable, or at least the way the film was written, that some characters feel the need to sacrifice their lives for other people. This isn’t a display of honor or bravery, but more feels like social conditioning that has been subconsciously planted in the minds of a certain group of people for far too long throughout life. There’s just no reason to write characters this way, which seems at the least insensitive, and at the most evil. It would be wonderful to never see this in films again.

A Quite Place: Day One is an entertaining film but definitely is forgettable. It would be hard to believe audience members will be running out of the theater to tell their friends and family that they need to go see this film as soon as possible, due to it being a huge step down from the first two films. The performances were not as great, there was a lack of action given the setting being in New York, and the level of suspense could’ve been much higher. With this being a prequel it would’ve benefitted the franchise if this was the first film released. Everything that made the first two films great was absent this time around, and it’s a shame to end this story with such a watered down version of its predecessors.

My Rating : 6.5/10