A Quite Unrealistic Place...

Rating: 5/10 (22 May 2018)

So, I found the acting decent and I'm sure the movie was well-intentioned, but oh man... that attention to detail (or lack thereof).
It is a noticeable trend in some kinds of post-apocalyptic and especially dystopian fiction, that the setting does not need to make sense. All that matters is the setting and the premise that goes along with it. This is a fallacy that, whilst sometimes making a story that is, at first glance, entertaining and fun, does not hold up to any kind of scrutiny at all. The Total Recall remake, The Titan, Snowpiercer, The Divergent series... the list is endless of such movies that eschew common sense in favour of artificial worlds that have about as much chance of ever existing as dragons and unicorns.
A Quiet Place, though not quite so egregious a transgressor as the aforementioned titles, nonetheless follows this trend with a poorly thought out setting that fails the scrutiny test.
In this film, the world has been taken over (somehow) by creatures that hunt by sound and are noted as being armoured and near invincible. They are swift, relentless killers that seemingly are animalistic in nature and lack much in the way of cunning.
Our heroes are a single family, trying to live a silent existence so as not to draw the attention of the beasts, which will spell almost certain death. The film shows their attempts to do this.
Sounds fair enough, right? Yeah, but that execution, though...
There are many plot holes and things to scowl at in this movie. Here we go.
The family walks around with no shoes on to make less noise. A simple pair of slippers would have sufficed, but no...barefeet for all, despite the risk of stepping on something and getting a wound...then infection etc. In fact, that risk is probably the sole (foot joke unintended) reason that this made it into the story. The minute you see it, you know someone is going to step on something at some point. However, in the way that they do it, a pair of slippers would have also worked just as well as barefoot.
The family spreads sand around to provide a soft path to walk on and deaden footfalls but despite having lived at the farm they are occupying for a year or more, there is no source of that sand shown. Presumably it would have blown away/been washed away with the rain etc. but no sandpit is in evidence.
The family resorts to makeshift soundproofing in their home but has possibly the world's best equipped electronics workshop in the basement. They have radios, oscilloscopes, security cameras and all kinds of tech, despite seemingly living out in the middle of nowhere. Yet they have no actual soundproofing. If they could find all this tech, surely they could have found better soundproofing than egg boxes and newspaper glued to the walls.
Despite having all this electronic gear, the father (who is shown to be good at electronics) doesn't think to rig up any kind of remote decoys using his tech. In this way, when the monsters attack the home, the only way they have of distracting the beasts is to send a child off to light some fireworks (No...really!) The father has the skills to rig up security cameras and to try and fix his deaf daughter's hearing aid, yet he doesn't know how to rig a simple sounder away from the house that can be activated from inside the house? No...just no.
The creatures are also poorly realised. Hunting by sound, with hearing so sensitive that any inadvertant noise will bring them running, it should have been anyone's first thought to use that dependence against them. Use sound to lure them someplace, then destroy them. Oh but wait, I forgot, they are indestructible. Silly me. Nothing on Earth could prevent these things from rampaging the globe and destroying civilisation. Not tanks, or A10's or explosives... Oh but a shotgun to the face will do it... Huh? What's wrong with this picture! Did everyone involved with it just forget the rules they made at the beginning? Oh but it was a cool scene, so that trumps common sense and pre-established rules, I guess.
These same beasts later are shown to be incredibly strong, ripping through a grain silo easily, but then later having issues getting through the roof of a pickup truck.
Also, I know the family loses a kid right at the start of the film, but who in their right minds would get pregnant in this setting? That's right...no one! Yet this family clearly is mental and decides to bring a newborn into this setting. Now, I don't know a lot about babies, but I do know one thing. They cry. A lot. Does this mother and father have so little regard to their other two children's safety that they would risk bringing a noisy baby into the world? Am I misreading the story? Or are the pair of them that self-centred that replacing the child they lost is more important than preserving the life of the two they still have?
Yeah, folks, this isn't a well-written tale. Plenty of drama and tension, plenty of CGI monster action, but not a lick of common sense to be found.
You know how, down the pub, you've had those discussions with your semi-inebriated mates about "What would you do in a zombie apocalypse?" And you know how they come up with some pretty good ideas sometimes? Yeah, well, nobody consulted their drunken mates on this one, and it shows.
SUMMARY: Poorly executed setting. Family not too smart. Plot holes and a general lack of sense to the whole thing that spoils what could have been a great concept. Consult more drunks next time, their ideas will be better.