A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (2024)
A Monstrously Moving Origin Story
Grade: B+
The Quiet Place movies manage to work time and again, thanks to its tried-and-true formula of monsters with a heightened sense of sound chasing the protagonists. Now that the franchise has reached its third movie, some viewers might find that formula stale; this reviewer is not one of them. When you have creatures as terrifying as these brought to life with such great effects, it is very hard not to get excited and terrified whenever they appear on-screen. And when you add a heavy dose of heart and likeable characters, the experience is made better, even if there is more that could have been done with it.
As the name implies, the events of Day One occur at the beginning of the monster invasion (despite the title, however, it actually takes place over several days). Lupita Nyong’o plays a cancer-stricken woman named Samira who is bitter to a caretaker named Reuben (Alex Wolff) at the hospice center she lives at. The film opens when Reuben takes Sam and several other patients to a marionette show in New York City. The show in question just happens to be on the same day that the meteors glimpsed in Part Two (2021) strike the Earth, unleashing the hostile aliens. As the city falls, Samira becomes determined to make her way to a local pizzeria in Harlem she is fond of, accompanied by man named Eric (Joseph Quinn), all while trying not to make a sound.
It takes a little while for Day One to really get going, even after the monsters arrive. Some viewers may even cry foul at the movie not showing the whole city being engulfed in the initial invasion (when the meteors hit, some creatures emerge from the smoke, attack civilians, and Samira is knocked out). But things heat up big time the following day, when a huge crowd headed for an evacuation center in the south is attacked. After Samira and Eric meet up, the movie piles on set piece after set piece as they flee from and/or hide from the creatures both above and below the ground.
After the pair reaches Harlem, the movie slows down for a stretch. It is here that the characters’ personalities shine through as Eric does what he can to cheer Samira up after they see that the pizzeria was destroyed in a fire. Eric’s backstory up to this point has been minimal, but his actions compensate for this shortcoming. Nyong’o and Quinn have great chemistry in this heartwarming sequence, and while it’s going on, viewers will be in no hurry to see the monsters again.
Day One is not a perfect experience. Even more could have been done with its premise and the finale, while exciting and moving, feels a bit rushed and doesn’t have as much impact as it could. A scene where one character urges the other to leave them would have been cliched, but it would have added more emotional stakes, as well as further development to the characters. But as with the recent The Fall Guy, the flaws won’t be as apparent while the movie is going on. And just like that flick, Day One is a well-made and exhilarating thrill ride with two main characters who really care about each other, something that is always welcome in the modern landscape of movies.
Director: Michael Sarnoski
Screenplay: Michael Sarnoski (Based on characters created by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck)
Producers: Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, John Krasinski
Cast: Lupita Nyong'o (Samira "Sam"), Joseph Quinn (Eric), Alex Wolff (Reuben), Djimon Honsou (Henri)
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