A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) Review

 "This place is shit."

-Sam

A Quiet Place: Day One follows a terminally-ill woman, Sam (Lupita Nyong'o), as she embarks on a dangerous journey across New York City during an alien invasion, along with her cat, Frodo.

Some mild spoilers below.

What Works:

The strongest aspect of this movie is Lupita Nyong'o's performance.  Sam is such an interesting protagonist.  In most movies like this one, the protagonist is pretty much solely focused on survival.  That isn't the case here.  Sam is terminally ill and when the movie starts, literally has days to live.  She isn't trying to survive this invasion.  She just wants to eat some pizza before she dies.  That's an incredible and interesting route to take this movie.  It sounds a little silly on paper, but it's really emotional and works very well.

Our other leads also do a fantastic job.  We have Joseph Quinn as Eric, who is in severe shock and doesn't exactly make rational decisions, but he's such a kind character that even when he does something stupid, you still like the guy and are rooting for his survival.  I frequently find this type of character frustrating in movies, but Quinn's performance makes this character work.

We also have the character of Frodo the cat, who was played by two different cats, Nico and Schnitzel.  I have to give major props to those cats and the trainers.  They do a fantastic job and it's incredible that Frodo is as integral to the story as he is.  It's honestly the best cat performance I can think of.

There aren't too many prequels that need to exist.  This is absolutely the exception.  The best part of the second A Quiet Place movie is the opening sequence that shows us what the initial invasion was like.  I love that we get a whole movie of that.  Plus it's a completely different setting.  It's just such a fun idea and I love watching the creatures crawl up and down the sides of skyscrapers.  It's very unsettling.

Finally, this wasn't really the action blockbuster I was expecting.  This is a large invasion, but just like the original film, it's a very small story.  There are just a handful of characters and it really focuses on those characters, not just on the action.  It's really just about Sam and Eric and how they face death and how they cope with their plans for their lives having not worked out the way they expected.  It's really interesting and heavier than I was expecting for a movie like this and I was pleasantly surprised.

What Sucks:

I do think the setting of New York City was a but underused.  Besides the skyscrapers and one scene in the subway, the movie doesn't do much with the location.  I just think the filmmakers could have had a little more fun with the setting.

Finally, there is one sequence that just doesn't work for me.  When Eric goes off to find medicine for Sam, he gets stuck at a ruined building with some of the creatures.  I just didn't find this sequence all that compelling.  It didn't help that somebody in my audience was snoring during this sequence, which was very distracting.  

Verdict:

This is definitely one of the better prequels out there, especially in the horror genre.  We get great performances across the board, a fantastically interesting protagonist, and a really poignant story.  Parts of the movie could have been tweaked, but it's still got it going on.  It's not as good as the original, but it's much better than the second movie.

 8/10: Really Good