'A Quiet Place: Day One' Shows The Joys Of A Baggage-Free Franchise

#278: "A Quiet Place: Day One," "Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1," "A Perfect World," "St. Elmo's Fire," "The Informant!"

Edition 278:

Hey movie lovers!

This week: A Quiet Place may just be the best movie franchise running today. I’ll explain why, then dive into why the Kevin Costner western “franchise” is already dead in the water. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a great Costner streaming rec to make up for that, plus a few more for good measure. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” Mel Gibson is back directing a very unhinged-looking Mark Wahlberg.

A Quiet Place: Day One

Sequels are hard. Extended franchises are even harder. It’s something I’ve talked about countless times, to the point where the word “franchise” has become synonymous with bloated plots and cash-grabbery. I know…you all are already rolling your eyes.

Among this toxic, franchise-invested hellscape, A Quiet Place is like a breath of fresh air. The first movie was a modern classic, the second movie successfully justified its existence, expanded the world and raised the stakes without overburdening the story or answering too many questions.

And here’s a third movie, Day One, that carries exactly ZERO of the baggage usually weighing these movies down. John Krasinski and Emily Blount aren’t on-camera, and Krasinski did not direct behind it either. There are no common characters, connective plot lines or (as far as I could tell) winking easter eggs.

It’s a big movie — CGI, monsters, spectacle, destruction — that feels so free and light on its feet. It can focus its gaze very narrowly and tell a richly developed story, where anything could happen at any time, in a crisp 1hr39min (!!!!!!).

Most importantly, it answers a question that any fans of the franchise would want to know — how did this whole thing start?

This time we’re in New York City, following Lupita Nyong'o on the day the aliens drop from the sky. Why? We don’t know! I love that. The entire movie is told from the limited perspective of Nyong’o’s character and her unlikely companion, a law school student played by on-the-cusp star Joseph Quinn. There’s no zoom outs or cuts to government war rooms for needless exposition dumps, because these two people are in peril from an unknown terror (which makes it scarier!), and even though the audience begins the movie knowing more than the characters thanks to the first two movies, it hardly matters because the story isn’t about the monsters but rather these two human beings and how they’re trying to survive.

The key to pulling off this true miracle is the simplicity of the premise, for all three of these movies: killer aliens are attracted to sound. You keep quiet, or you die. Anyone who watches these movies can identify with that in about five seconds. It’s relatable, it’s terrifying, and it leads to moments of incredible drama and tension (all I need to say is “the nail scene” from the first movie and you know exactly what I mean).

Nyong’o and Quinn have no business acting this hard in what is basically a summer disaster blockbuster, but they bring surprising depth and emotion to roles that could’ve just been wide-eyed scream queens (well…silent scream queens). Nyong’o has been one of the most under-appreciated leading women of her generation (12 Years a Slave and especially Us gave us all the evidence we need), and Quinn is becoming the first youngster from the “Stranger Things” universe to show he can lead big adult movies (in addition to this he has a big role in this fall’s Gladiator 2).

The backdrop of New York City lends prestige and excitement to the proceedings (as it does in every movie set there), and creates new opportunities for obstacles and challenges that weren’t present in the countryside from the first two installments. Every face-off with the monsters felt new and surprising, leading to some grip-your-seat moments.

And unlike most other blockbusters, which are scrubbed and sanitized of any material that doesn’t please audiences or make them feel good, this movie is willing to play notes of melancholy and bittersweet that amplify the emotional impact of its satisfying conclusion.

Guess what — audiences still like that when it’s well done! This movie is a commercial hit: $52.2 million domestic and $114 million overall in its first week against a lean $70 million budget.

Long time newsletter subscribers may remember how much I loved the Nicolas Cage movie Pig, but I never would’ve guessed that its writer/director Michael Sarnoski would be capable of following up that little A24 indie with a big popcorn movie like this, especially one that maintains its storytelling and character-driven integrity.

With a second straight success, he’s a season ticket director for me going forward.

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Something New

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 (Theaters): We like to criticize “the machine” of Hollywood, with its overreaching executives and endless notes, for the sanding down of creativity in movies. But Horizon is a great example of why some feedback is a good thing. This project was written and produced and directed and starring and financed (to the tune of $37 million of his own money, AT LEAST) by Kevin Costner, with no other creative forces to reign in his ambition to expand and expand and expand to the point where he’s planned FOUR three-hour movies set in the wild, wild west, in which the main character is a plot of land. Yes, you read that right. What ties it all together is a patch of prarie.

Of course, Costner is one of the most iconic on-screen cowboys in cinema history, so it’s easy to see some appeal here, but he doesn’t even show up on screen for the first hour of this movie.

Honestly, movie isn’t even the right word for it. It’s a 12-hour episodic…that’s what we call television, especially when it’s criminally filmed using digital cameras rather than film, has dozens of characters and plotlines, and finishes with a long montage of clips previewing the next episode err I mean “chapter.”

Chapter 1 logs three hours of runtime without any discernable climax or standalone story. It’s not like nothing happens. We get at least three entire movie’s worth of plot and characters, each with its own action sequences. But none of that matters within this three-hour table-setting for what’s to come, where people are introduced without any real purpose in the story other than maybe being important seven hours from now. None of it is memorable.

The project that came to my mind was Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind, which he filmed on and off for six years and tinkered with for nine more until his death (It was eventually released in 2018, with the Netflix documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead if you’re interested). Welles was losing his mind, filming hundreds of hours of footage and driven by some kind of mania to put it all together. In this case, I have no doubt that within Costner’s madman brain there is a two or even three hour version of this that could’ve been compelling. Who knows, it maybe could’ve even matched the critical and commercial success of his Dances With Wolves. But here he bit off more than he, or anyone, could chew.

What’s more, the failure of this movie commercially means the second installment, which is released in August, will also almost certainly fail. That puts the funding for production of parts three and four very much in doubt. I may just have to tap out now.

Something Old

A Perfect World (1993, $VOD): Most of Kevin Costner’s movies are so iconic that recommending them — Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, The Untouchables, JFK, Tin Cup etc. — feels pretty unnecessary. But there is one hidden gem from his filmography that I didn’t even know existed until this past week. Costner stars as a convict who escapes prison, being chased by a Texas Ranger played by Clint Eastwood (who also directs the movie), with help from incredibly young versions of Laura Dern and Bradley Whitford. In his escape, Costner takes an 8-year-old boy hostage and becomes an unlikely father figure.

On one hand, I’m not sure I’ve ever found a movie more dated culturally, from its treatment of women (Dern), to its take on law enforcement (psychology is treated like a freak show) and technology (a mobile home-turned police HQ is considered cutting edge). On the other hand, Costner’s relationship with the young boy building through adventures both positive and n

St. Elmo’s Fire (1985, Hulu): I had initially intended for this to be my “something old,” because this new documentary Brats sent me down a Brat Pack rabbit hole that led me for the first time to this iconic 1980s movie starring most of the key members — Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy.

But I couldn’t in good conscience recommend this movie, because to me it was almost unwatchable. Has there ever been a movie more helped by its theme song?! (It’s a banger.) It felt like a bunch of kids playing adult dress-up, 22-year-olds with adult problems like drug addiction and marriage and career flame outs yet interacting with each other like children. And Estevez’ plotline chasing Andie McDowell? Creepy! It’s quite clear this was a movie set in a hyper-specific moment in time, when these were some of the coolest people in the world (and they knew it), but my 2024 brain did not fall for any of their charms, and in fact their attempts at cool annoyed me. For anyone who has watched this movie and enjoyed it please tell me what I’m missing, because I found it to be no fun at all.

Something to Stream

The Informant! (Max): Steven Soderbergh, a legendary tinkerer and experimentalist, was asked this week at a film festival which of his movies he wouldn’t change a frame of. He answered Out of Sight, which…duh, and then interestingly added that he loved how The Informant! turned out. I’m glad he said it!

This Matt Damon-led docudrama has long been one of my favorite Soderbergh movies, turning the dull world of corporate humdrummery into a farcical thriller using his signature style of doling out information one crumb at a time until the ending twist hits like a tidal wave. And Damon’s performance is among his career best! Check this movie out, as every aspiring cinephile needs more Soderbergh in their life.

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Trailer Watch: Flight Risk

Mel Gibson — I repeat, MEL GIBSON — is back in the directing chair for the first time since 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge (has anything noteworthy happened for Gibson since then??) in this claustrophobic little thriller aboard a prop plane in which Mark Wahlberg’s disguised hitman tries to kill Topher Grace’s witness and Michelle Dockery’s U.S. Marshall tries to stop him. It looks totally insane, which could either mean sheer disaster or surprising brilliance. One thing’s for sure. Wahlberg is turned all the way up to 11 and I can’t wait to see it either way.