Stu Kline

+11 clout

Sep 2, 2026

Look I'll be honest. I put Part II on because I still had the first one in my head, the one where they play Monopoly in a farmhouse and a nail does more damage than the monsters. I wanted to see if Krasinski still knew how to shut a room up. He does. For about forty minutes. Then the movie has to go somewhere, because sequels have to go somewhere, and that's where I started keeping score. Three things, right off. One: the Day One opening. It's a ballgame. Little League. It's too loud on purpose. You already know the pitch is coming and you still flinch when the sky rips. I have sat through a lot of "remember when the world was normal" prologues. This one works because it's a dad in the stands, not a news montage. Krasinski is in it just long enough to remind you why the first movie hurt. Two: the sand path is gone. They're off the farm. Bare feet on a road, a kid with a rifle, Emily Blunt looking like she has not slept since 2018. I compared it immediately to the first one, because that's the job. The farm was a bottle. This is a road picture that is terrified of the road. That's a harder movie. Sometimes they nail it. Sometimes they cut to the next barn because they ran out of idea. Three: Millicent Simmonds. The deaf kid, Regan. The cochlear implant. I am not going to write a speech about representation. I am going to say she is the one who knows how to fight the thing that hunts by sound, and the movie is smart enough to let her do it without a committee meeting. That's the whole trick. She is not a mascot. She is the person who can walk into the noise. Cillian Murphy shows up as Emmett, a guy who has already quit, living in a foundry like a man who lost the argument with himself. I have seen that character. He is the washed-up closer who won't take the ball. Then the girl with the hearing aid makes him take the ball. I bought it. Murphy does not wink. He looks tired in a way movie tired usually isn't. Djimon Hounsou has an island. I am not spoiling the island more than the trailers already did. People on boats. A radio. "Beyond the Sea." I grinned when the song showed up because of course it did, and then I stopped grinning because a harbor full of people trying not to breathe is a nasty idea and they play it fair. Nobody lectures the islanders about their demographics. They are trying not to die. That is the plot. The creatures still look like somebody built a nightmare out of bat anatomy and a food processor. I like that they did not explain them to death. First movie: they hate sound. Second movie: some of them are blind in a different way and the implant can make them eat themselves. Fine. That's a gimmick. It is also a kid figuring out a tool, which is more honest than a general with a PowerPoint. What doesn't work. The middle stretch on the road is a greatest-hits reel of "don't cough, don't step on glass, don't let the baby make a noise." I have watched that scene. I watched it in the first one. Doing it again with a new location is not a new scene. Blunt is doing real work, Noah Jupe is doing real work, and I still felt the runtime looking at its watch. Also: I wanted more of the island rules and less of the score telling me when to squeeze the armrest. The first one trusted silence. This one remembers silence, then it remembers it is a summer sequel and somebody paid for a rumble. Grade, blunt. The opening is an A. Simmonds is an A. The foundry and the dock are a B-plus. The connective tissue is a C. Average it out and I land on four stars because the good parts are the kind you tell people about in the kitchen the next morning, and the saggy parts are just saggy, not a sermon. I kept waiting for the movie to stop and explain the family to me. It doesn't. Dad is dead. Mom is holding a baby and a gun. The kids are the ones who can still move. That's a story older than talkies. It still plays. I would watch it with the sound low, which is a joke, and also the correct way, because the whole point is you start hearing your own house. Not a lecture. Not a metaphor with a press kit. A family trying not to make noise. I can sit with that. I did. Then I got up and didn't slam the door, which is the review.

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Stu Kline
+11 clout
Sep 2, 2026
Look I'll be honest. I put Part II on because I still had the first one in my head, the one where they play Monopoly in a farmhouse and a nail does more damage than the monsters. I wanted to see if Krasinski still knew how to shut a room up. He does. For about forty minutes. Then the movie has to go somewhere, because sequels have to go somewhere, and that's where I started keeping score. Three things, right off. One: the Day One opening. It's a ballgame. Little League. It's too loud on purpose. You already know the pitch is coming and you still flinch when the sky rips. I have sat through a lot of "remember when the world was normal" prologues. This one works because it's a dad in the stands, not a news montage. Krasinski is in it just long enough to remind you why the first movie hurt. Two: the sand path is gone. They're off the farm. Bare feet on a road, a kid with a rifle, Emily Blunt looking like she has not slept since 2018. I compared it immediately to the first one, because that's the job. The farm was a bottle. This is a road picture that is terrified of the road. That's a harder movie. Sometimes they nail it. Sometimes they cut to the next barn because they ran out of idea. Three: Millicent Simmonds. The deaf kid, Regan. The cochlear implant. I am not going to write a speech about representation. I am going to say she is the one who knows how to fight the thing that hunts by sound, and the movie is smart enough to let her do it without a committee meeting. That's the whole trick. She is not a mascot. She is the person who can walk into the noise. Cillian Murphy shows up as Emmett, a guy who has already quit, living in a foundry like a man who lost the argument with himself. I have seen that character. He is the washed-up closer who won't take the ball. Then the girl with the hearing aid makes him take the ball. I bought it. Murphy does not wink. He looks tired in a way movie tired usually isn't. Djimon Hounsou has an island. I am not spoiling the island more than the trailers already did. People on boats. A radio. "Beyond the Sea." I grinned when the song showed up because of course it did, and then I stopped grinning because a harbor full of people trying not to breathe is a nasty idea and they play it fair. Nobody lectures the islanders about their demographics. They are trying not to die. That is the plot. The creatures still look like somebody built a nightmare out of bat anatomy and a food processor. I like that they did not explain them to death. First movie: they hate sound. Second movie: some of them are blind in a different way and the implant can make them eat themselves. Fine. That's a gimmick. It is also a kid figuring out a tool, which is more honest than a general with a PowerPoint. What doesn't work. The middle stretch on the road is a greatest-hits reel of "don't cough, don't step on glass, don't let the baby make a noise." I have watched that scene. I watched it in the first one. Doing it again with a new location is not a new scene. Blunt is doing real work, Noah Jupe is doing real work, and I still felt the runtime looking at its watch. Also: I wanted more of the island rules and less of the score telling me when to squeeze the armrest. The first one trusted silence. This one remembers silence, then it remembers it is a summer sequel and somebody paid for a rumble. Grade, blunt. The opening is an A. Simmonds is an A. The foundry and the dock are a B-plus. The connective tissue is a C. Average it out and I land on four stars because the good parts are the kind you tell people about in the kitchen the next morning, and the saggy parts are just saggy, not a sermon. I kept waiting for the movie to stop and explain the family to me. It doesn't. Dad is dead. Mom is holding a baby and a gun. The kids are the ones who can still move. That's a story older than talkies. It still plays. I would watch it with the sound low, which is a joke, and also the correct way, because the whole point is you start hearing your own house. Not a lecture. Not a metaphor with a press kit. A family trying not to make noise. I can sit with that. I did. Then I got up and didn't slam the door, which is the review.
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A Quiet Place Part II

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