Review : A Louder Place

Which is obviously what they should have called A Quiet Place 2.

Checking back through this blog, a lot of the more recent reviews I've written have been pretty negative. This is good, because it's easier to make jokes about stuff I hate, but bad because... well, I had to endure a bunch of assorted crap in order to write them. No wonder professional comedians are depressed.

Not last of these is the last movie I saw in a cinema, the "impressively humdrum" Tenet. The only good thing I forgot to mention is that we saw it in a VIP cinema : for 20 EUR, you get an unlimited buffet (which was really very good), soft drinks, popcorn, a small screen room with only a dozen seats or so, each of which is a large, fully electronically adjustable recliner. With its own little table so you can comfortably stash your goodies. Considering we don't get to the cinema very often, I'd say this is well worth it.

So we chose this for our first cinematic experience of the year, QP2. We watched QP1 recently on the small screen, and I wasn't fussed. It wasn't bad, it just didn't do anything for me. The premise was good, but I too often got a very strong, "these people are idiots who deserve to die a grisly death" vibe. Which is, of course, a fatal problem for many a horror movie.

I'm pleased to say that QP2 has no such problems. It's just a darn good little movie. The plot gives us a nice bit of backstory to QP1 : that is, how exactly the Earth has been overrun with blind, audio-sensitive monsters, and we follow the fortunes of the same largely silent family (with a deaf daughter) as they fervently try not to step on a twig at inopportune moments. We now get a bit of exposition as to where the monsters come from - not very much, but enough to satisfy curiosity without telling us the whole deal.

QP2 has quite a bit more talking than QP1, which I found beneficial. In fact the whole thing seems tighter, more focused, more sure of what it's doing, and just generally better in every way. If Stranger Things ever did a crossover with Dunkirk, this would be the result.

To qualify that, I didn't like Dunkirk. But the soundtrack was outstanding, and in QP2 a similar style of tension-building is applied - albeit not quite to the same unrelenting level, but with equal effectiveness. Likewise the cinematography is solid. Not so much because things are especially well-framed (they aren't), but because of the clever interleaving of the action scenes. Although this is a common enough trick, somehow here it's done really, really well, keeping the tension and suspense high without ever being distracting. Scary ? Not really. There are some good jump scares, but mainly the word I'd use to describe it is "gripping". You constantly want to know what's going to happen next. It's not quite a horror movie, not quite an action-monster movie, but a little of both, and it makes that genre all its own.

The only thing I actively didn't like was a single scene in which some of our protagonists have to deal with other, less well-adjusted survivors. The scene is just pointless. It adds nothing to the plot and feels weirdly inserted, like an actor needed extra film time because they hadn't quite earned enough to buy and extra pair of gold-plated shoes yet. It could literally be cut out with no other editing and the film would improve. Still, this is best kind of problematic scene to have.

Overall I'm giving this one a very solid 8/10. It's a good cinematic experience which benefits thoroughly from the immersive nature of a great big screen and a thumping subwoofer. If you're ready to get back in the cinema, this is a darn sight better choice than last year's dismal attempts to deafen everyone into believing that Christopher Nolan isn't actually a pretentious twerp. Next up for me are Dune and No Time To Die, both of which I'll be enjoying in literally-laid back luxury while guzzling a mountain of surprisingly high-quality popcorn. Both of which I'll be enjoying in fully-vaccinated safety.