'A Quiet Place: Day One', Disappointed Me
Trust me, I wanted to like it.
This week was a big week for film, for me. I had 4 cinema trips lined up, two of which were some of my most anticipated of the year (Kinds of Kindness and A Quiet Place: Day One), yet I’m writing this after a very disappointing few days. The only film I gave above 3 stars to this week was Kinds of Kindness (5 stars). I saw A Quiet Place: Day One on Thursday because my local cinema managed to screen it a day early. I was so excited to see it as a fan of the first two but I walked out feeling let down. It’s pretty obvious why John Krasinski wasn’t too interested in making this, because the film is completely unnecessary.
Credit: Paramount Pictures
Unnecessary doesn’t always have to be a bad thing, it could allow filmmakers to get creative with their worldbuilding, but this film falls flat in almost every aspect. Firstly, I found the plot incredibly generic, we’ve already seen a ‘day one’ in the Quiet Place universe. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have made a day one movie, but it doesn’t add any value to the universe. It could have been interesting, but I didn’t care for the characters (besides the cat) and it felt like they weren’t trying to make me care. Sam’s arc is that she was mean at the start of the film and then “sacrificed” herself at the end (but not really). She wasn't even that mean to begin with. I tried to connect to her, and I did feel bad for her circumstances, but I never got too attached because I knew there was no scenario where she would survive longer than a week.
The motivation that moved the plot forward was laughable. It revolves around Sam and Eric risking their lives for a slice of pizza. It kind of works in the moment, Sam knew she was going to die either way so she wanted to have her final pizza, but the film fails to recognise the risk this might have for others outside of Eric.
The plot could have gone in so many other directions, which leads me to the plot holes. It’s never explained how they know it’s sound the monsters are attracted to, they just know. In the first film, we see newspaper headlines breaking the news. This suggests that they didn’t know for a while, but in this film, they knew in around 20 minutes. Maybe a little more. I think a more interesting plot could have seen more of a focus on them trying to escape the island and slowly realising everything is pointless. This idea is trumped in the first act when Sam walks past somebody listening to the radio and mapping out everywhere on the globe that has been invaded, which seems like most major cities. I think it would've been interesting to see the characters slowly realise it’s sound the monsters are attracted to, instead of just knowing.
Credit: Paramount Pictures
This brings me to my next point. I didn’t think the film was scary at all. I thought the jumpscares were extremely cheap and badly done. The CGI was laughable at points and I didn’t feel on edge at all, like I did with the first two.
It’s not all doom-and-gloom with this movie. Lupita Nyong’o does an excellent job (as always), and the cat is absolutely in the running for the Best Animal award. One thing about all of the Quiet Place movies is that they all know how to pace themselves extremely well. None of them overstay their welcome and remain pretty entertaining.
I’ve found that some people, however, have a hard time separating entertainment from quality. Whilst this film is entertaining, for the most part, it falls flat in almost every other aspect when you look a little closer.