A Quiet Place Part 2

Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place Part 2

A Quiet Place Part 2 is a workmanlike sequel. Writer/Director John Krasinski has a bigger budget and a larger canvas to work with, but the qualities that made the original a nice surprise are largely absent. 

A prologue shows the alien predators' arrival during a little league game. Tracking shots establish the all American small town vibe before the whatzits arrive to wreak carnage. The prologue exists to remind us of Krasinski's Dad, who was killed off at the end of the first film, Emily Blunt's Mom and the remainder of their clan, but also to introduce Cillian Murphy's "Emmett", the male lead of the sequel. Emmett is the fly in the ointment here. A straw man in a trucker (read MAGA) hat, Emmett exists to renounce selfish individualism and work for the common good. Murphy, a significant talent, struck me here as neither blue collar nor American. 

The other major flaw of the film is that Mr. Krasinski has chosen to divide the family, whose dynamics underpinned the first film, into two separate plot lines. The second half of the film devolves into strained cross-cutting that dilutes, rather than doubles, the dramatic tension.