Complete silence is way more eerie in the city.
We officially have a trilogy of Quiet Place movies with the release of A Quiet Place: Day One. This is typically where most franchises start to go downhill, as studios use the titles as cash cows while providing a mediocre script that stems from rushing to get the film out as soon as possible. But as it turns out, Day One is an outlier because wow, this movie is simply awesome. It’s thrilling and keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish and in addition to that, we once again have great (and new!) characters that you genuinely like and care for by the end.
In the first two Quiet Place movies, we got a look at what the world is over a year after an alien invasion where the attackers hunt completely by sound. The settings in both films were mostly in quiet small towns and farm areas; places where it would honestly be easier to stay quiet. Day One, as referenced in the film’s title, takes us back to the first day of the invasion. And this time we get to experience these aliens attacking people in one of the loudest cities in the world: New York City. Choosing this approach was a fantastic idea to breathe new life into what’s already been a really good franchise. Even though the first two films work very well, this shake up of showing what the alien invasion looked like in a city environment was a smart choice.
The movie follows Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) and Eric (Joseph Quinn) as they navigate through the city trying to make rescue boats and find pizza (this will make sense when you see the film). They both give really good performances in a movie that doesn’t necessarily require great acting. These films in this franchise always have thrilling scripts and premises, but we also get really good performances and characters we actually care about, which is what makes these films stand out. Day One might be the best of the franchise (so far) in terms of giving us depth and background on our protagonists. And by the third act, you really do feel sympathy for Sam, specifically, and there are some sweet moments between her and Eric. They are perfect strangers who meet at the right time in the worst situation imaginable. Also, we can’t forget about the cat, Frodo, who steals the show a few times. Truly an Oscar-worthy performance and one of the best animal performances we’ve seen in a film in quite some time.
There are some fantastic set pieces in Day One, and the filmmakers did a great job making it feel like New York was being invaded. There is pure destruction around every corner that include memorable scenes with really astonishing set pieces. Without spoiling anything, one involves the subway (a staple in New York City) that will make this film memorable similar to the fireworks scene in the original film. While the moments seeing the aliens run the streets of New York are awesome, I do think there were a few missed opportunities for some iconic crowd-pleasing shots. At one point, there is a thunderstorm and lightening every few seconds and it would have been so cool to see one of the aliens at the top of the Empire State Building as the sky lights up with lightening. Besides missing minor fan service like that, what we do get wind up getting is very satisfying. It’s so eerie seeing the streets of New York City that quiet.
As a whole, A Quiet Place: Day One is a strong entry in the Quiet Place franchise and definitely holds its own. I was a bit skeptical when I saw that John Krasinski wasn’t returning to direct. But newcomer to the franchise Michael Sarnoski (Pig) does a great job paying homage to the first two films, but also making this one feel like his own. I hope we keep getting more films from this franchise because they are truly all hits, no misses. In a summer that has been mostly lacking so far, Day One demands to be seen in theaters.