A Quiet Place Day One is a lot of questions and no answers

Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it…I wasn’t really all that psyched to see A Quite Place Day One. I liked the first two well enough. I took my daughter and her friend to see the first one and she kept burying her face in my shoulder. That’s a treasured memory.

But the previews for this prequel (I’m pretty much over the whole prequel fad…is it just me?) left me cold. It was clear that this wasn’t going to be a story telling about who the soundcritters are. Or why they wanted to come here and ‘get all rowdy’ (to channel Capt. Steven Hiller from Independence Day). That would have been a prequel premise to shout about. Heck, I would have settled for knowing how they got here with no ocular orifices. How does their tech work with them basically being a giant ‘super-ear’? We have questions.

Just like Furiosa?

You know what question we didn’t have? How did the Quiet Invasion affect anybody else except Emily Blunt, John Krasinski and their family? We invested ourselves in their struggle for two movies. Starting all over again with A Quiet Place Day One feels like a money grab, not a continuation. And if anyone anywhere was asking for a prequel, I’m positive it was to anwer the aforementioned questions.

What we got instead was the story of a young, angry female of color with cancer and nobody to care about her except maybe one person at the inpatient cancer center where she lived. One might say that, if you can’t find something in that last sentence to become emotionally invested in then fellow dudes and dudies, you just aren’t trying. Yet there I was. Not caring all that much.

I always considered myself a dog person, but now…

Sam (no last name necessary) is played by Lupita Nyong’o (most notibly of Black Panther 1&2 and Us*) is accompanied by her emotional support cat ‘Frodo’. And for most of this movie, the only emotional investment I had was over the fate of this almost supernaturally incredible cat. I’m not kidding, this was the smartest, most loyal, chill-in-the-face-of-anarchy feline ever in all the history of history. Never to be equalled and barely to be believed. Not that Frodo did anything pivotal or John Wick-like. You’ll just have to see what I mean.

One does not simply walk into NYC

Anywhoo, Sam and Frodo (oh wow…I just this moment got that!) survive the arrival of the soundcritters, crashing en masse into New York City. Why would the soundcritters with their hyper-sensitive earfaces head to the epicenter of noise in this country? Questions. And in the chaos, this angry loner does the only logical thing and adopts a scared, besuited young professional named Eric (no last name necessary). Because societal collapse is well known for bringing out the charity in angry loners.

Questions, questions and more questions

Together, they embark upon the perilous journey to make it to a shipyard where survivors are getting out of Dodge by loading up on a large boat. Because soundcritters, with their galaxy-spanning spacecraft can’t swim and can’t figure out how to get to a floating thingy. But they attack a planet that is 3/4 of a thing that they can’t figure out. Questions.

A Quiet Place Day One just has so. many. questions. Where are all the bodies? Where is the gore? How did the loudest city in the world get silent so quickly? More questions.

Djimon Hounsou…for literally no reason I can fathom

I was glad to see Djimon Hounsou in this cast. I love him in every single one of his roles.** ‘Give us, Us Free’ is one of the most powerful lines of all time. A talent for the generations. So I was disappointed to find out that his part in A Quiet Place Day One was so small and impactless that any minimum wage talent could have done it. I would rather have seen him play the part of Eric, to be honest. The casting choice doesn’t make a lot of sense, is all I’m saying.

Pray I don’t alter it any further

The Average Dude started out giving this movie a 3 out of 5 because, in spite of taking half of it to become emotionally invested in anything that didn’t have whiskers and softpaws, I eventually liked Sam and Eric. I wished them well. I begrudgingly believed in their kindness towards each other. Because the Average Dude is an optimist at heart. When goodness triumphs under the most extreme of circumstances, I cheer. I want to believe that happens.

But as I type, I’ve found more unanswered questions in both the story and the choices behind the story. So against my usual habit of grading with my first gut reaction, I’ve dropped the score for A Quiet Place Day One a couple of times. The result is a modest 2.8 out of 5. The Average Dude can neither recommend nor NOT recommend it. I can only tell you that I am glad I saw it, and only because my personal makeup is geared towards that kind of ending. So sue me. I’m an optimist and I won’t be quiet about it.

*I saw Us at a free screening and I still feel like I spent too much. It used to be my least favorite movie all time, until Drive Away Dolls unseated it.
**except for maybe Shazam!

Check out all the Average Dude Movie Reviews and our super cool merch at www.barredlands.com

Like and Follow us on Facebook

#barredlandsdotcom #AverageDudeMovieReviews #PCLoadletter64 #AQuietPlaceDayOne #FrodotheCat