The ??? ?? ????first A Quiet Placedid not build a world so much as suggest one, in snippets of conversation and props scattered around set. It was enough: The basic idea of a post-apocalyptic landscape stalked by monsters sensitive to sound was all we needed to know to white-knuckle through every tiptoe through the house, or gasp at every unsuccessfully stifled scream.
But it couldn't last. The film ends with a place of refuge turned into one of carnage, waterlogged and broken and littered with monster body parts. So A Quiet Place Part IIsends the surviving Abbotts — mama Evelyn (Emily Blunt), daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), son Marcus (Noah Jupe), and a newborn baby — outside the walls that once kept them safe, to see what fresh horrors await and take us along for the ride. And while they don't find anything out there to quite rival the pleasant shock of discovery from the first film, they come up with more than enough to justify a second trip into their world.
This expansion of the universe begins, first, with a flashback. Part IIopens on the day of the monsters' first invasion into the Abbotts' idyllic small town, chaos and confusion setting in as screaming extras and crashing cars spill all over Main Street. The cacophony marks a distinct change of pace from the quiet tension of the first film (though not an unwelcome one, thanks to John Krasinski's clear direction and a crisp sound mix) and it sets the tone for a movie that goes bigger and louder in every way.
With the creatures posing slightly less of a mystery and a threat this time, thanks to the weakness revealed at the end of the last film, Part IIemphasizes their raw strength and speed over super-sonic hearing. While we still get a few nail-biter moments of people trying desperately to move as silently as possible, jump scares and bloody mayhem are more the order of the day. They're effective in the moment — I nearly fell out of my seat a few times — but they don't linger in their terror, and there's nothing close to the excruciating horror of the nail or birth scenes from the original.
What the sequel offers instead, is a sense of scope and forward motion. Much of Part IIis devoted to the Abbotts' encounters with other survivors, most notably Emmett (Cillian Murphy). He's introduced as a sort of stand-in for Lee, the late Abbott patriarch played by Krasinski, down to whatever hair and makeup magic has transformed Cillian Murphy into a John Krasinski type. But he's no Lee, as the characters themselves are quick to point out. (It may be worth noting here that Krasinski also wrote the script.) Instead, his story, along with others', serves as a bitter contrast to the Abbotts' relative good fortune, bringing into sharper focus the world that this catastrophe was unleashed onto, and the world created in its wake — and the world that might come next.
Where the first film centered on the bottomless depths of a parent's love for their children, the second passes the baton to the children who were raised with that love, and now must decide how to move ahead with it in the world. Simmonds proves more than up to the task of taking on Regan's budding badassery, charging ahead with a jut of her chin that emphasizes both her determination and her youth, while Jupe expertly dials into Lee's anxiety as horror after horror burden him with new fears and new responsibilities.
Their arcs build on the formula established in the first film, transforming it into something recognizably related but obviously distinct. Where the story will go from here it's hard to guess, though it does seem reasonable to assume it's not over. Part IIseeds more than a few possible avenues for potential spinoffs and sequels (including, in one of the film's rare missteps, a detour so frustratingly undercooked that it's hard to imagine any other purpose for it). But that's par for the course now for any film deemed to have franchise potential. More crucially, Part IIearns the promise of a sequel by doing what the best sequels do, striking out in search of new stories instead of settling for retracing its steps. Part IIisn't A Quiet Place, but it's an addition worth applauding all the same.
Just remember to do it quietly. Remember, they can still hear you.
A Quiet Place Part IIis in theaters May 28.