Can We Normalize All Movies in a Series Being Good?

A Quiet Place: Day One

---

This weekend I went to go enjoy the relatively short movie, A Quiet Place: Day One. It was only an hour and forty minutes which, in today's age of cinema, can be considered a quick movie. I should make it clear that I am not someone who voluntarily watches scary movies. I typically do not watch any horror genre because I was blessed with a vivid imagination and a nearly photographic memory, those images stay with me longer than I would like. I’ll give you an example, when I was five I lived in an apartment complex where there were many other children my age. These children and I frequently spent time outside together and we all knew each other in some capacity. One of the little boys I knew and his brother invited me into their apartment to watch a movie with them. I was extremely sheltered which in turn caused me to be just as naive. I was the “la la la” skip to your loo girl but also I was only six. Unbeknownst to me it was a scary movie and once it was on I couldn’t seem to rip my eyes off the television. Unfortunately for my mother, I went home and wasn’t able to properly sleep for a month. 

I could dive deeper into other reasons why I don’t do horror movies but I’ll spare my word count for the actual movie review. All that being said, the Quiet Place series are scary movies that I ended up really enjoying. I was naturally intrigued with the release of the first Quiet Place because the director was John Krasinski, who I knew and loved as Jim Halpert from The Office. The first Quiet Place had been streamable for some time so my family and I decided to watch it together. I found the movie to be so well done, totally palatable for someone who doesn’t enjoy scary movies such as myself but still feeling like I was very much involved in the fear. We then watched the second Quiet Place in theaters which was also a great experience. It made me question if I really disliked scary movies or not. 

With having such fun associated feelings from the first two movies, the prequel piqued my interest. I was not, by any means, following the franchise by waiting on news of an additional movie, outside of seeing some Quiet Place memes occasionally. I started seeing Instagram reels promoting A Quiet Place: Day One, which first alerted me this movie was even being released. Lupita Ny’ongo (as Sammy) and Joseph Quinn (as Eric) were to be starring in it which I found intriguing because I have enjoyed both of their work, naturally I assumed they would be a good duo. However, the reels that I was seeing made me feel suspicious of the movie. From the clips selected to be used as reels or even in the trailer, it felt very CGI heavy and, dare I say, a touch unnecessary. I also felt like some of the selected clips were very contrived and seemed to focus greatly on Lupita’s facial expressions. All of this is leading me to believe this movie would be more or less mediocre, but sometimes trailers and reels are made to mislead you so I made the conscious decision to choose optimism. 

Well, my instinct was right. I knew it was right, let’s be real. Anyone who enjoys movies and saw the trailer, knew it wasn’t going to be as good as the first two. It had all the ingredients to still be entertaining but it wouldn’t have the trifecta of good acting, good story, good film. 

The film was okay, in my opinion. It was one of those films that was made for audience entertainment. It was giving Auqaman vibes, apologies if you adored those movies. I checked the rotten tomatoes score halfway through the movie which reported at a generous 87% rating. At the end of the movie, I was genuinely surprised by that rating. I can’t emphasize enough, it was not a bad movie but it was giving American entertainment. It was just a really unnecessary film and I felt that it somewhat tainted the reputation of the first two. Of course it was not thought provoking but I even thought it was less scary than the other two. Perhaps I was accustomed to the cadence of the previous movies, so there was less anticipation about the suspense. Or maybe it was because since it’s “Day One” we see swarms of Death Angels (monster aliens) frequently on screen rather than seeing one or two at a time during the first two. Either way, to me, it felt significantly less tense throughout the whole movie. 

Now we’re getting into very personal opinions about the movie, so be forewarned that these opinions are likely not to be shared. Without mincing words, I thought many scenes were overacted by Lupita. I respect Lupita greatly as an actress, but for this particular movie, I felt that she over acted many of the intense scenes. Listen, I don’t do what she does. There are so many aspects of acting that are unknown to me but as a viewer I will call out what I observe. That’s why I even created this blog. I think the tricky thing would be pulling emotions on an experience or scenario that is a reality imagined in someone's mind that no one has actually experienced in real life. How would anyone know how they would react if there was an alien invasion? It’s such an unrealistic scenario (for some) that it would be difficult to pull realistic emotions. So credit where credit is due, but she did overact for sure. There was a scene where her hospice nurse gets snatched up by a Death Angel and her mouth is so agape and her shaking feels so contrived that it made me giggle. I think Lupita makes these really intense faces that directors love getting shots of for, what seems, like drawing pathos from the audience or emotionally setting a scene.

Forgive my lack of proper explanation but she has these wide eyes with beautiful dark skin, the contrast is stunning on film. Drop a single tear down one eye and the directors have a golden shot they can use for everything marketing wise. To me, it’s a little old. This of course has nothing to do with Lupita, I just wish directors would utilize her differently.

Joseph Quinn starred as a companion for her throughout the film as they try to make their way through New York City to Harlem and eventually to the boats that will “save” them. I thought he did well. It’s possible that I’m sensitive to this but he had a few crying scenes where it felt like I could see him digging into his emotional vault to make the tears appear. I love watching actors who make their lines seem like words that generated naturally from their own minds. I know she won an Oscar for this, but Emma Stone in Poor Things is an acting performance I will always remember. She had the most ridiculous lines in a ridiculous scenario and it all seemed so real. More or less, I felt Joseph didn’t overact as much but he was not the main character. As a viewer, it felt like the focus was on Sammy, although Eric was her companion for more than half the movie he seemed much less significant. This is a movie where humans can’t make noise, the acting is in the body language which may be from their performance, but it was hard to feel attached to the characters. They were forgettable. 

  And then there was a cat… 

What do I even say about the cat? I love cats and the cat in the movie was beyond adorable but that’s about it. I do not understand the creative decision to include a cat. I can understand it adding an element of suspense but what happened was, it created an extra layer of unrealistic-ness. The cat ran away multiple times and just so happened to find Lupita’s character again. The director tried to portray that the cat was dunked under water multiple times, which to any adult it was obvious that wasn’t the case. The cat never meowed once throughout the whole film, again, not really realistic. There were only one or two scenes where the cat caused some trouble but not through meowing. For example, it slightly rubbed against a bell on a hat as he was walking back to his owner which caused it to make noise thus beckoning the Death Angels. The cat doesn’t even have any relevance to either of the Quiet Place movies, so it felt like a cheap move to create audience engagement. 

Overall, the movie was a prequel. Did they tie elements of the prequel to the movies previously? Yes, specifically to A Quiet Place II, however there were no real answers, which is fine I suppose. The prequel basically answered how the Death Angels got there (kind of) and how humans ended up on that island that was in the second movie. We don’t know exactly why the Death Anglers were there or what they wanted, if they wanted anything. They just crash on to Earth and start killing anything that makes noise. Throughout the movie there were many instances that made you scratch your head with “She’s so dumb” or “Why didn’t she do this”. But spoiler alert, Sammy was a terminally ill patient who was just trying to get pizza in Harlem before she died. Of course there’s added sentiment to her reasons behind getting pizza particularly in Harlem but I’m keeping it simple. So her whole goal was to stay alive until she had some pizza. I thought this motive re-emphasized the weak storyline, but for a movie that lacked dialogue, it was a way to connect with Sammy’s character more. The movie was not directed by John K. but instead directed by Michael Sarnoski but beware one of the producers on the film was Michael Bay. For Michael Bay fans, you’ll probably enjoy the movie. For those who know Michael Bay and are familiar with his work, you will definitely see his influences in it. When I saw his name in the credits I was like “Ahhhhh, makes sense now”. 

As an audience rating out of 10 i’ll rate A Quiet Place: Day One as a 4.8

I would probably not recommend watching it in theaters unless you are an avid movie theater enthusiast. I believe it would have the same impact on viewers if they streamed it. 

Thanks for reading! 

Au revoir

Can writers and producers put more efforts into sequels and beyond?

• Yes
• No
• Probably but they won't