Despicable Me peaked with Silas Ramsbottom. Not the Steve Coogan voiced character, per se, but the sequence of his jowly introduction. Was it Kevin, or perhaps Bob, who looked furtively to his neighbouring minion and sniggered ‘bottom’, before bursting into unbridled laughter? Either way, a gag of all time greatness was born. Nothing else in the, now fourteen-year-old, franchise has ever matched such infantile brilliance, certainly not in such a way as to justify the astounding commercial success the series has achieved. $4.6bn and counting. Film four does little to break the mould, instead opting for gentle expansion. It’s bright, breezy and a little exhausting.
From the moment she struts into her first frame in MaXXine, skin-tight in silhouette and denim, Mia Goth is everything. In a film all about exploitation and the thirst for fame, only she has the fangs to drink it. There’s just something about her ownership of Ti West’s screen that screams star, even without the Bette Davis’ eyes and Betty Boop lips. No doubt, the film itself, which is likely the weaker of the now three X films, underserves Goth’s gumption. Certainly, it’s an uneven effort, rising well but folding hard. And yet, so long as there’s bite in those fangs, there’s a compelling beat to be found.
One of the great strengths of John Krasinski’s original Quiet Place, beyond its ruthlessly effective premise, was the decision to set the film far into the post of its post-apocalyptic setting. Day 472. The world belonged to the monsters, humanity had adapted to survive. Detail was scant on the hows and whys, with imagination encouraged to fill the gaps. That it has taken the franchise just three films to pull the prequel card might, then, feel a touch depressing. Or, rather, it would were Krasinski and incoming writer-director Michael Sarnoski not smart enough to know that themselves. A Quiet Place: Day One is less origins tale than intimate character study with a narrative that could only exist with the first forty-eight hours of invasion.
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