You know that feeling when a movie has a really huge climax, bumps all the best characters off and has an ending that is just open/closed enough where you don’t need a sequel because you can fill in the blanks? But then they announce a sequel anyway? That’s basically this film and it sets it at a disadvantage right from the gate. How can they possibly hope to match the first film when the main guy was already bumped off. The short answer is that at least on the characters front they are completely unable to recover.

The sequel starts off with a flashback that shows how the main characters first met the aliens. They showed up out of nowhere and began terrorizing everybody. They were fast and just overwhelmed this small town. They may have a lot of weaknesses like sound and not being fully bullet proof but for a little spot they are still strong enough to dominate. I have major doubts about them being able to take over the world or anything like that but that’s for another time. It’s a pretty good flashback and I would actually say it is more interesting than the rest of the film. It reminds you of why the main character was solid and knew what to do. He didn’t hesitate at all and leapt right into action. That’s the true sign of a hero.

So in the present Evelyn, Regan, and Marcus are still trying to survive. They locate another survivor named Emmett and ask for shelter but he refuses since they will take up far too much resources and humanity is already on its last legs. They also have a baby around which makes things even worse since it needs oxygen and cries a lot. Unfortunately Regan overhears a signal and realizes she can find more survivors so she heads out without much of a plan or defenses. This forces Emmett to go after her. Meanwhile Marcus doesn’t really watch where he is going and gets wrecked quickly by a trap. He’ll be out of commission for most of the film and Evelyn has to watch out for him while worrying about Regan. What can they do?

With such a rag tag group of survivors I dare say they should have been taken out ages ago. They’re just an extremely loud bunch even if some of the events are stuff they could not have predicted like Marcus falling into a trap and Regan running off on her own. Yeah they’ve got the sound machine and a gun but these creatures move incredibly fast. You just get the feeling that they would have the edge in combat. We actually see the heroes beat a few of them and I was skeptical each time. The alien would generally slow down or miss when it shouldn’t have.

Now we know that the aliens do have a lot of weaknesses, sound, water, and generally any good weapon but even so, a bunch of kids aren’t going to do much here. I feel like the aliens were heavily nerfed in order to make the main characters look good and that’s a rather huge expense if you ask me. They just don’t have the same impact that they did in the first film and in the end that is something that often happens in sequels. I suppose it is unavoidable to an extent but can still be annoying.

As for the characters, I didn’t like Regan. I know that she meant well but her whole plan was completely irresponsible. Leaving without telling the others is super selfish because naturally they are going to have to go after her and put themselves in danger. Evelyn may be ready for action but she has a baby to worry about and Marcus who is still injured. They’re lucky that Emmett decided to help because he could have very well just left. Regan would have then been dead early on. The fact that things end up working out pretty well doesn’t retroactively make her plan good or anything like that. No, we still know that it was a bad plan and that is the big problem here.

Then I didn’t care much for Marcus either. He really just got in the way the whole time with all the yelling. Yeah it really hurts but this is a matter of life and death, you gotta stay strong. Also the first thing about being in a post apocalyptic world is that there is danger around every corner so you should be watching where you’re going. Locking himself in an air tight prison by mistake was also a really bad move. I won’t blame the baby too much for being annoying since there’s not much a baby can do though.

Evelyn was one of the only reasonable characters here. She’s at least trying her best to get through a tough situation. She has so many people to watch out for that she isn’t really able to stand out a whole lot but she doesn’t give up and that’s the important thing. Then we have Emmett who is also fairly reasonable. He’s one of those guys who talks really tough but ends up helping out in the end. There’s not a whole lot to say about him, I’d say the guy is very standard but hey that’s not a bad thing. Better to be generic than bad.

The film can be violent at times although not quite as violent as the last film. I would say it tends to move at a slower pace though and you do got for long portions of time without any real action. The movie’s biggest crime tends to be that it can just be a little boring here and there. Better characters would have done a world of good here but that’s just how the cookie crumbles in the end. I feel like the first film was a whole was a lot more engaging and did more with the premise but this one took a bit of a safer approach. Think of it as a stable ride while the other one was a roller coaster.

Overall, A Quiet Place Part II feels rather aimless for most of its journey. It’s just not as interesting as the first and we don’t really see the aliens as much as you’d think. It feels like the writers aren’t really sure where to go from here because the whole film feels like filler for the most part. Yeah we learn some things like the government’s island plan (RIP to everyone who was just minding their business there) but you could probably skip this film and not really miss much. For a film like this you should be learning more about how we are going to make a counter attack against the aliens or something. This is just a little too low level in terms of what the heroes are planning. I want to go back to the big picture but in the meantime the prequel should be fun to hopefully address my questions on how the aliens could have possibly defeated the military.

Overall 4/10