A Quiet Place = VASTLY overrated!

Having confidence in your ability to decide whether a film is good, bad or middling is one thing, and yet, as you said, film is subjective, and if that's the case, you can only have confidence in your belief, right? What's good to you may not be good to someone else, and vice versa. Doesn't inherently make the reviews uneducated or pandering. I think that mind-set is dismissive. That's all I think.

I also think that's selling current reviewers short and/or that's overselling older reviewers as superior. Instead, what I see is over-saturation of reviewers, which means it's up to the individual to find their select group of individuals instead of following the gospel of an aggregate website like Rotten Tomatoes or MetaCritic. Not saying you do that, just saying I think we're at an age where we should take popular consensus more casually, since we have such a melting pot of different perspectives (more than ever before) sharing their thoughts. It's up to us to find that shouts in the loud crowded room that we can trust.

I agree with that. Although I find it hard to ignore the aggregate websites. They’re a good point of reference. If a movie had been critically panned or praised you will see and see quickly/ Then we come to your point of over-saturation - which I agree with. But doesn’t that feed into the idea that in the past there was more quality than quantity (in terms of reviews)?

Edit: and why? Maybe because of education and work experience.

Aggregate websites are a good point of reference. And, you could argue that there's more quality over quantity, but what I suggested is that there's more differing opinions than before. Those who love Lawrence of Arabia and those who are more attuned to a thriller like Fight Club, those who love The Godfather and those who love romantic comedies, it doesn't inherently suggests intelligence or ignorance, simply difference of opinion and personal preference.

A lot of individuals who do YouTube reviews have been doing said reviews for years and years, substantiating a significant following through insightful opinion and presentation.

I find insightful reviews from blokes that have been doing it a day and I find utter bollocks from writers who've reviewed for decades. I've went to film study classes where everyone approached it as an easy-credit.

If I've become an intelligent reviewer and writer, I think it's because I've done a lot of practice (written several books, written hundreds of reviews) and because I have a healthy obsession with film. I think that most reviewers check the boxes in that fashion though.

Once more, I think it goes with the saturation of film-critics, it's a melting pot of ideas and as you start blending different cultures and backgrounds, you start finding that many have different reasons for liking different things.

For instance, I hated The Witch, I think it was boring and unoriginal. I didn't like It Comes at Night. And while I will provide counter-arguments to praises, I don't insult the integrity of the entire critique industry because everyone likes a movie I don't.

Fair points. I did make it clear that this was my perspectice only. I also did not criticise the intelligence of the reviewers I merely commented that the quality of reviewers on mass has reduced (in my opinion) and maybe could be attributed to reviews being accepted by those that do not have the traditional education and work experience. I’m an advocate for education, for experience and for skills learnt at university such as critical thinking and research skills.

I do however appreciate your points regarding different perspectives due to various reasons. How depending how you look at something it can be good or bad for various reasons. I appreciate that thinking, especially if it was argued persuassively within a review.

Of course I could be reasonable and could be persuaded to some extent but part of my feels it’s just wrong and I frown over some of the films today lauded with critical praise.

The reason I make reference to the past is that I have found generally that movies maybe prior to the 00’s which have high critical praise and high aggregate scores are generally worthy of those scores and acclaim. Whereas today I don’t feel ‘some’ are.

But again to be clear - this is my perspective only. Only from limited observations. Of course there are exceptions. A persons intelligence is not being dismissed or belittled here. It’s just an opinion - based on my limited view. Maybe I have been arrogant thinking that I know that film isn’t worthy of praise. But I cannot deny these thoughts nor will I shy away from saying them. I can be persuaded otherwise of course and I can also be made a fool of. But that’s ok because it’s just a discussion.

Ps I didn’t like the witch either.

Haven't actually seen Unbreakable. Adding it to my watchlist.

Anytime a genre picture relies on an interesting 'gimmick', people will jump in line to tear it apart when small things don't seem to line up 100% with what the film is presenting. A Quiet Place takes the ambitious task of creating a world where monsters kill you if you make a sound. So it makes sense that people are going to be waiting patiently for a sequence where someone makes a sound and then when they are not killed, we get to rant and rave about plot holes. On top of that, the "what would you do" scenario is escalated. Why wouldn't they do this? Why wouldn't they do that? If the characters don't do what you suggest, they are automatically dumb. I think it's incredibly hard to craft a film around such a premise and I applaud the film for giving it the old college try.

The world is decimated by an invasion of aliens/monsters that hunt by sound. a little over a year after the invasion, a small family tries their best at moving on after a devastating loss.

One of the aspects of the film that I think people are forgetting is that we only see this world through two perspectives. One is that of this family, who have taken painstaking steps to ensure they live in a place where sound is non-existent. The second is in the newspaper clippings we see where they gives us a peak into the backstory of this invasion. IT'S SOUND one headline reads, "How to Survive" is another. Smart move from the filmmakers to give us a glimpse into the bigger picture without exposition (there is non in this film, bravo).

People will automatically assume that the military is dumb for not finding out the weakness of these monsters. Maybe they did but it was too late? Maybe the pure shock of seeing these aliens/monsters was enough to make us lose the fight, maybe America's attitude of we have guns and we will win no matter what was the downfall. People are complaining about the shotgun killing the one alien. We need to pay attention, these creature are almost indestructible. He has armor written on the whiteboard, so the act of the sound and the weapon working in tandem makes sense to me, simple enough. In the chaos of an alien invasion, I think we shoot first and ask questions later. The questions that are asked...are asked too late.

Yes....yes, this film has a lot of issues with logic. Why would a family let their youngest child be at the end of the line, unsupervised, when monsters are around? Why not live near the waterfall to cover your sound? Why leave the God-Damn nail in the step when everyone walks around without shoes? Why not make more than one sound proof room? The biggest one of course is why jeopardize your entire family's lives with getting pregnant? It's never explained why they decided to have another child, was it on purpose or an accident? It's irresponsible. These are flaws in logic from the characters, but it makes for some great tension filled sequences. So I guess I'm one of those people I talk about in the opening paragraph.

A film about not making any sounds, has to pay extra attention to the sound design. Krasinski does a marvelous job here with very little dialogue, communication through sign language and the use of sound being only used in key moments. I read that they did some rough cuts of the film completely silent. For people able to tell a story without the aid of sound is hard, the classic show don't tell is on fire with A Quiet Place.

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Suspect's Reviews

Gave this movie the winning spot in my fantasy thread.


25 lines of dialogue, the first of which isn't spoken until 40 minutes in.


The technical side of the movie is something else as well.
They didn't just film it and then use sound editing to quieten things down... the crew while filming would actually make no sound so that the natural sounds that the cast were making would be picked up by the microphones, giving a more natural essence to the noises that were made.


And, nobody spotted the family name is Abbott?
No shoes, no speech, praying in silence?
Abbott?
Get it?

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i don t think its overrated, it s a very good addition to the horror genre, although it does touch previously done territory, but it is pretty engaging and supremely atmospheric

I don't much care for the film, but the common "plot hole" complaints don't bother me anyway, especially not the waterfall one. Seems like you'd want to minimise your traveling outside as much as possible in this situation and having to go back and forth between a makeshift home (which would already be a challenge to build if you're made up of a nuclear family and can't make much noise) and the farm you need to keep running in order to stay alive would be too much of a risk.

My main complaint with this film is that it really did not need to have a background score. The silence itself is intimidating enough (especially in tandem with the remarkable sound design) that including music on top of all of that just feels like redundant overcompensation. It was like Gravity all over again.

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Vastly.. I couldn't agree more.

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I'm torn on the score. I too think it should have been silent, but the score was really good in itself.