First of all, this is my eldest son’s birthday today and I wanted to send a great big shout out to him! It’s a milestone birthday for him and I am a very lucky Dad to have him in my life. He makes me proud every day. Happy Birthday!
A Quiet Place: Day One: In 2018, the original and surprise sci-fi thriller hit A Quiet Place was released. I was a fan of the John Krasinski story, with his direction, along with him acting with his wife in real life Emily Blunt. The premise was a subtle but important turn on the typical alien invader story. In that story the alien creatures were seemingly without weakness, and were roaming freely through the US and in this smaller US farming community. The movie follows a family and three kids struggling through this invasion. The sequeal released in 2020 continued on with the story for Emily Blunt and family.
This story has nothing to do with Emily Blunt and her family. It is a prequel set in NYC with all new characters. The primary character here, named Samira, is played by Lupita Nyong’o who is a woman stricken with cancer in a hospice facility. The is alone with her cat, and is down on her life and life in general. Then the unexpected for those in the film happens as images and events very reminiscent of 9-11 takes place throughout the city. Raining down from above come these meteorites which are these blurs as attacking creatures with devastating effect.
Buildings are falling, dust flies, fires begin, explosions occur and people are wiped out. In all of this madness we follow Samira who works to navigate her way to safety. Crawling under trucks, running through dusty streets in clouds of dust with an unseen danger, clearly killing these people around her. In all of this, she inexplicably manages to keep her cat close to her. Of course one has to check reality at the door at times. In this case I thought about the practicalities of trying to film these scenes with an adult cat, without Nyong’o being scratched and bitten to shreds. But in the film, with all the chaos going on around her, she still manages to find her cat. Not just once. There was a moment about halfway through the film when in my head I said “if she finds that cat one more time in all of this, I have to stop the film.” I stopped it. Incredibly!
Having been a fan of the first effort especially, I feel as though this story was a cash grab, taking advantage of the goodwill built up in the earlier films. The first film works especially because of the family angle. Mom, Dad, kids and how they interact. Emily Blunt’s character was also pregnant in the first film, and you just agonize with her as she is about the give birth in the scenes. That isn’t present here, despite the best of intentions in trying to gain sympathy for Samira’s cancer condition and diagnosis. She meets some random people who help her, show humanity and give her hope. From a character who talks to her therapy group about how her life was “shit” then before everything happened. I do think that life in North America in 2024 doesn’t have people generally appreciate just how good things are for us. Life even 100 years ago, let alone 400 years ago would have been. She learns some lessons, but as an audience member it didn’t work for me. So I am not able to recommend this. Unfortunately.
House of the Dragon Season 2: The second season of this series finished last Sunday with the eighth and final episode. Apparently there are two more seasons to go. We get to see the trials and tribulations among the Targaryan family as they battle for the crown of the departed King Viserys. There are two camps, Viserys’ daughter Rhaenyra, who was promised the crown by her father in no uncertain terms, but then the son of Viserys’ second wife Aegon. Aegon is one of a few heirs with Alicent Hightower and Viserys.
But as a season, I don’t think it ends in a way that is Game of Thrones worthy. I know that I will harp on this, but if you are marketing this series, and using the Game of Thrones theme song, then you must expect some comparisons with the original series. This doesn’t have the same families and characters weaving amongst each other (although there are some), nor the number of locations within Westeros and beyond. In this way it seems like GOT Lite. This season also didn’t end with an expected cliff hanger.
This feels more as pieces were being placed on a board and then the movements are going to take place later on. I like some of the placements, with the moves being made on both side of the potential battle (Aegon and family versus Rhaenyra and allies). I also note that the women seem to be more stable leaders than the men, certainly within the Targaryen family where the men and boys show themelves to be power hungry and viscious. The one episode where the dragons battle as I wrote about earlier was excellent. But the last couple of episodes have once again moved into more plot heavy dialogue. I wish that it moved quicker. I wish that there were episodes like the dragon battle episode. It seemed that Game of Thrones was able to build off on one another on multiple fronts. I will continue to watch. I do like the production values. I also generally like the actors, and the performances. But the quality of the story and writing seems more borrowed from Wolf Hall or The Other Boleyn Girl or the Tudors, all having to deal with the Henry VIII. Of course it is not completely this story but there are certainly elements of it.
Mondays With Robbie 